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DR. MARSH'S 



f ttfrenile %tmpxmtt speaker* 




THE HOPE OF OUR COUNTRY. 



By® - go$ : 

AMERICAN TEMPERANCE UNION. 
1860. 



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THE 



TEMPERANCE SPEAKER, 

COMPILED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES 

FOR THE USE OF 

JJanbs of |joje, 

JUVENILE TEMPERANCE ASSOCIATIONS, 
CADETS OF TEMPERANCE, &c, 

IN THEIR MONTHLY AND WEEKLY MEETINGS. 

BY EEV. JOHN MAESH, D. D. , 
Cor. Sec. Am. Temp. Union. 



I 



Jtatr gm[lt: 



S- 

AMERICAN TEMPERANCE UNION, 
NO. 10 PARK BANK. 










Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S60, bj 
REV. JOHS MARSH, D. D. 
In the Clerk's Oftce of the District Court of the United States for the Souther* 
District of New York. 



J. P. PR ALL, PRINTER BY STEAM, 
9 Spruce Street, New York. 



*v 



PREFACE 



Frequent inquiries for suitable Temperance Speeches and Dialogues 
for the use of the young in their various private and public meet- 
ings, have led the Compiler to gather together what would be most 
appropriate and useful in his own various publications, and in the pub- 
lications which, from time to time have fallen under his eye. For the 
use of children and youth and to be committed to memory, no piece 
or dialogue of much length could be required or be proper. The 
more direct the bearing of each piece upon the subject of Tem- 
perance in the young, and of the vicious and destructive influence of 
the least moderate use of intoxicating drinks, especially under the 
present system of adulterations, the better. The forthcoming gener- 
ation must be enlisted for temperance. Then, no art of the Destroyer 
can cause hundreds and thousands of our youth to lead lives of woe 
and shame ; and, finally, to fill drunkards' graves. That our " sons 
may be as plants grown up in their youth, and our daughters as 
corner stones polished after the similitude of a palace," is our earnest 
prayer and daily labor. 

J. MAKSH. 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 



The Battle for Freedom. 



BY REV. DR. TYXG. 



We have fought for our independence, and now we sit quietly 
under the evils of a tyranny we pledged ourselves to resist. We 
declared against entailment, and we allow the disease and poverty 
and wretchedness of rum to be entailed on our posterity. We de- 
clared against orders of nobility, and we have them in our midst— 
privileged rulers, licensed to tread on the necks of their fellow- 
men — their countrymen — and suck the life-blood from their pros- 
trate victims. We have the dukes of the dram-shop — the earls 
and marquises of the bar-room, down to the little baronets of the 
tippling houses. One of our old patriots said to the tampering 
English, " Poor as I am, your master's wealth cannot buy me,'' 
and we, their descendants, have sold ourselves for a pittance. I and 
my children are slaves of the dram-d.aler : we must pay out of the 
savings of our industry to support the paupers he makes, and the 
police he renders necessary ; while he, privileged, licensed, stands 
in his shop door, gazing with a boastful, braggart, oppressive 
look on the community he despises in their vain efforts to put him 
down. And this is called a " Model Nation !" And we are forced 
to petition, to beg protection against a set of foreign vagrants. 
Sir, I believe five out of six of all the dribbling dealers are foreign- 
ers. And it is declared "unconstitutional" to vote upon the 
question of their license ! 

Was the Revolution accomplished only to doom me to Irish, 
French, and Gorman slavery ! Will we submit to be drugged to 



6 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

death ? Shall we point out with our own hands the place of sepulchre 
for our children ? Is there no protection against this evil for those 
who peaceably labor for their daily bread ! We may " sympa- 
thize " with foreign struggles for rights and independence, but we 
can do no good while we remain enslaved ourselves — while Fifty 
Thousand human beings are yearly sold like cattle in the shambles 
to these agents of evil — these monsters of God's forbearance, 
and monsters of man's iniquity. Do you say I speak too strongly ? 
It is time to speak strongly. I ask if such men as my friend from 
Washington — I would rather gay from New Hampshire— if such 
men may not lift up their voice ? It is time for the pulpit — for 
the ministers of that gospel which holds no compromise with evil, 
to stand out boldly and faithfully against this oppressive sin. 
There is a fear in the minds of some. They are afraid lest the 
cause be unpopular, or they become uninfluential, or offend certain 
nice individuals. Let it be so no longer. Let us who are fathers 
take our children, as Hamilcar did, and make them swear eternal 
hate to this destroyer of our land — this beast of prey, fastening 
itself on the vitals of the nation. 



Water.— A Splendid Description. 



One Paul Denton, a Methodist preacher in Texas, advertised a 
Barbacue, with better liquor than was ever furnished. When the 
people were assembled, a desperado in the crowd cried out — " Mr. 
Paul Denton, your River ence has lied. You promised us not only 
a good barbacue, but better liquor. Where is the liquor V 1 

" There !" answered the Missionary, in tones of thunder ; and 
pointing his motionless finger at the matchless Double Spring, 
gushing up in two strong columns, with a sound like a shout of 
joy from the bosom of the earth. " There !'' he repeated, with a 
look terrible as the lightning, while his enemy actually trembled on 
his feet ; " There is the liquor, which God, the Eternal, brews for 
all his children ! 

" Not in he simmering Still, over smokey fires, choked with 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. I 

poisonous gases, and surrounded with the stench of sickening odors 
and rank corruptions, doth your Father in heaven prepare the 
precious' essence of life, the pure cold water, but in the green 
glade and grassy dell, where the red deer wanders, and the child 
loves to play, there God brews it ; and down, low down in the 
deepest valleys where the fountains murmur and the rills sing ; and 
high up on the tall mountain-tops, where the naked granite glit- 
ters like gold in the sun, where the storm-cloud broods and the 
thunder-storms crash ; and away far out on the wide, wild sea, 
where the hurricane howls music, and the big waves roar the 
chorus, sweeping the march of God, — there he brews it, that beve- 
rage of life, health-giving water. And every where it is a thing of 
beauty ; gleaming in the dew-drop ; singing in the summer rain ; 
shining in the ice-gem, till the trees all seem turned to living jew- 
els— spreading a golden veil over the setting sun, or a white gauze 
around the midnight moon ; sporting in the cataract ; sleeping in 
the glacier ; dancing in the hail shower ; folding its bright snow- 
curtains softly about the wintry-world ; and weaving the many- 
colored iris, that seraph's zone of the sky, whose warp is the rain- 
drop of earth, whose woof is the sun-beam of heaven, all decked 
with celestial flowers, by the mystic hand of refraction. Still 
always it is beautiful — that blessed life-water ! No poison bubbles 
on its brink ; its foam t brings not madness and murder ; no blood 
stains its liquid glass ; pale widows and starving orphans weep not 
burning tears in its depths ; no drunkard's shrieking ghost from the 
grave curses it in words of eternal despair ! Speak out, my friends ! 
would you exchange it for the demon's drink, Alcohol ?" 



The Temperance Band of Hope. 



BY JOHN PYNE, AGED 12 YEARS, OF SOMERSETSHIRE, ENGLAND. 

Come, all ye children, sing a song, 

Join with us heart and hand ; 
Come, make our little party strong, — 

A happy Temperance band ; 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

We cannot sing of many things, 
For we are young, you know, 
But we have signed the temperance pledge 
A short time ago. 

The Band of Hope, shall be our name, 
The temperance Star our guide ; 

We will not know the drunkard's shame — 
The drunkard's drink avoid ; 

Cold water cannot do us harm, 
Strong drink may bring us woe ; 

So we have signed the temperance pledge, 
A short time ago. 

We'll ask our fathers too, to come 

And join our happy band ; 
True temperance makes a happy home, 

And makes a happy land. 
Our mothers we are sure to gain, 

And all our sisters too ; 
For we have signed the temperance pledge 
A short time ago. 

And all our brothers ; — they must join, 

We'll ask them every one ; . 
We'll get our neighbors too, to sign, 

And help our temperance on ; 
We'll sing and tell to all around, 

And all our town shall know, 
That we have signed the temperance pledge 
A short time ago. 

And thus we'll spend our happy days, 

Till we get up to men ; 
Just like a full grown English oak, 

We'll be the firmer then ; 
And if degraded drunkards should 

Invite with them to go, 
We'll say, we signed the temperance pledge, 
A long time ago ! 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

Family Pledges. 



A DIALOGUE BETWEEN FRANCES AND ELIZABETH. 

Dear Frances, 1 have been over to Mr. Stanley's, and they have 
hung up in the parlor, in a most beautiful frame, a Family Tem- 
perance Pledge. The whole family are sitting under a large tree, 
and at the foot of the hill bubbles up a beautiful fountain of water. 
The pledge is below the picture, and to it are the names of Mr. and 
Mrs. Stanley, and Charles, and James, and Susan, and Hetty, and 
even little Willie, though somebody must have written it for him. 

Well, I tell you, Elizabeth, I do not like such things. I think 
it is making too much show of our virtues ; telling every one who 
comes in, what we are, as if we were better than other people. 
Besides, I think one can keep sober without signing a pledge. 

Well, you will allow, Frances, that they will be no more sober 
without than with. Now, if something is to be gained by sign- 
ing, then the tables certainly would turn in our favor, Now, who 
can tell but it may save one of those brothers from becoming a 
drunkard ; you certainly would sign, if it would do that. Then, 
again, the Stanley's tell all their neighbors that they are tetotal- 
lers, without saying a word or giving any explanation. Visitors, 
as soon as they see the pledge, never think of being offered any 
wine or cordials ; and when the Stanleys call on them, they never 
have the glass set before them. It would be an insult. It is like 
a political badge, or like a Christian profession, to let people know 
which side you are on. 

But suppose, Elizabeth, they do not keep the pledge, as I do not 
believe James and Hetty will, what then ? 

What then ? why to be sure they will break it, and theirs will be 
the disgrace. But what if they should, (and I am sure they will 
have too much respect for their father not to do so,) what then ? 
Why, I will tell you what then, they will feel the good influence 
of it all their lives, and be thankful for it when they die. It will 
be a family without a drunkard in it, and the good influence of this 
pledge may be felt to the end of time. Some may derive benefit 
from it hundreds of years hence, and if all the families in town 



10 * THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

would sign such a pledge, then our rumsellers might depart, and 
the wine gentlemen would find little encouragement in such a com- 
munity. I see by our Missionary papers that our good Dr. Scud- 
der, the Missionary in India, has a family pledge ; and he, and all 
his children, have signed it. What a lesson that is to all that call 
at the Mission House, and to ail the people of India ! 



The Rum Traffic. 



We have been throwing tufts of grass at the traffic ers in rum 
whilst they have been pocketing the apples and chuckling at our 
clemency. Now let us try what virtue there is in stones. Moral sua- 
sion alone, has no more influence over such persons, than moonshine 
has in melting ice, when the mercury is at the freezing point. Their 
consciences are seared — their hearts are harder than iron, their 
souls are mortgaged to the evil one, and their minds are demented 
by the use of intoxicating liquors. Shall we fold our arms and be 
patient ? Patience is guilt. Shall we speak soft words unto them 
and be merciful ? Mercy to them is cruelty, and rank injustice to 
every body else. They burden the rich and the poor with out- 
rageous taxation. They squander the hard-earned fortunes of the 
men, who are weak and wicked enough to drink. They fill our 
hospitals with slavering idiots— raving maniacs and bleeding vic- 
tims. They dishonor our beautiful women, and crowd the dens of 
infamy with the fruits of their ruinous business. If it be dis- 
honest to receive money without returning an equivalent, they are 
dishonest. If it is an act of theft to appropriate to one's self that 
which belongs to another, they are thieves ; for they wear the gar- 
ments, spend the money, and live in the houses which belong to 
their patrons. 

But I would not punish them as they punish their customers, for 
they are not prepared to die. I would endeavor to persuade them 
to discontinue their horrid traffic ; I would try to show them the 
evils growing out of their cruel calling. If appeals, arguments, 
entreaties, prayers, eloquence, tears, and thrilling facts, make no 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 11 

impression on them, I would compel them by the strong arm o 
flesh, or the stronger arm of the law, to stop the business. 

— Temperance Journal. 



Bo Quarter to be Given. 



A. M. Vansant, communicating the facts of the murder of Mr. 
Applegate, at Cranberry, N. J., makes the following well-timed 
remarks : 

u Something more must yet be done by the friends of temperance. 
The temperance reformation has now come to an important crisis, 
and such a one as calls loudly for every one interested in this moral 
reform, with united and unyielding efforts, to urge their cause. The 
contest between cold water and rum, between honor and ignominy, 
between happiness and misery, between reason and insanity, and 
between life and death, is about to come to an important issue. It 
is true many battles have been fought, and many victories have 
been gained by the Cold Water army. The triumphs of tempe- 
rance inspired its votaries with courage, and called into action all 
their vigor ; and by that courage and vigor they continued to tri- 
umph. The enemies of temperance were vanquished, their hearts 
began to fail them, and they sat them down to mourn over their 
fate. The ruinous tide of intemperance was measurably checked 
in its course, and rolled back to its fountain. 

" This caused the advocates of temperance to suppose that the 
struggle was past ; that the Cold "Water engine had such speed, that 
it would reach its destination without the addition of fuel or steam. 
Therefore their efforts were slackened, and the potency of their 
united influence ceased to be called into requisition. And what 
has been the result ? Why, the insidious foe has been gaining 
strength, has been throwing up its fortifications, and increasing the 
number of its votaries ; and, indeed, not because it could do so 
from its own intrinsic power, but because the fr'enisof temperance*' 
by their indifference and ease, permitted it. 

" The experience of the past, then, teaches this truth — that nc 
quarter is to be given to King Alcohol — that the united efforts 



12 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

of the advocates of temperance are not to cease, so Icng as rum is 
made, and sold, and drank. No compromise whatever will answer, 
and no lukewarmness is safe." 



Press Onward. 



The mystery of Napoleon's career was this — under all difficulties 
and discouragements — " press on." It solves the problem of all 
heroes ; it is the rule by which to judge rightly of all wonderful 
success. It should be the motto of all — high and low, fortunate 
and unfortunate, so called. "Press on;" never despair; however 
dark the way, however great the difficulty, or repeated the failure, 
" press on.' 7 If fortune has played false with thee to-day, do thou 
play true for this to-morrow. Let the foolishness of yesterday 
make thee wise to-day. If thy affections have been poured out 
like water in the desert, do not sit down and perish for this, but 
" press on " — a beautiful oasis is before thee, and thou mayest reach 
it if thou wilt. If another has been false to thee, do not increase 
the evil by being false to thyself. Do not say the world has lost 
its poetry and beauty. It is not so ; and, even if it be so, make 
thine own poetry and beauty, by a true, brave, and above all, a 
religious life. — Selected. 



The Dying Drunkard. 



BY A PHYSICIAN. 



Hark ! hark ! methinks I hear a tone 

Of curs2S mingling now with groans, 

That strikes upon the listening ear 

In notes of woe ! Are demons here ? 

" Back ! back ! ye hell-hounds !" now he cries 

While maddening frenzy fires his eyes ; 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 13 

And with fatigue upon his couch, 
Awaits again the fiends' approach. 

"Help! help!" he cries again, " they come ; 
Oh ! don't you see their forked tongues ; 
Keep them away ! God ! they tear 
My flesh, and wind among my hair ! 
Ho ! drive them from around my bed ! 
Yipers of Hell ! what do I see — 

! 'tis a ghost ! where shall I flee ? 
My wife ! she comes e'en from her grave 
To haunt me ! Back ! thou canst not save ! 
Hell yawns to clasp my wretched soul, 
And devils now my heart-strings hold ! 

They come ! they come ! God ! save ! save ! 

1 sink with demons to the grave ! 
Away ! away!" His strength was gone, 
And with a curse, his life was done, 
Delirium Tremens fired his brain, 

And death now closed the drunkard's strain. 

Oh ! 'twas a fearful scene ! upon 
His couch of straw his life was done. 
And now before me, lifeless lay 
The haggard form — the drunkard's clay. 
No friend was there to close his eyes, 
Save those who were humanity's. 



"Give me a Short Life and Merry.' 7 



Merry ! Is there any merriment in the broken down father, who 
sees one whom he fondly hoped would have been the stay of his old 
age, sunk into the hopeless, helpless, debased condition of a drunk- 
ard ? Merry ! Is there any merriment in the broken-hearted 
mother, who sees all her tender cares to bring up a man, thrown 
away upon a brute in human form ? Merry ! Is there any merri- 
ment in the wife who sees the once-beloved sinking from the conse- 
2 



14 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER, 

quences of his own vices into an early and disgraceful grave? Is 
there any merriment in the child— the drunkard's child — when her 
meek look of love is returned with a satanic scowl, and instead of 
a blessing, she received a curse or a blow ? Merry ! Is there any 
merriment in the victim himself, in his alternations of lethargy and 
madness ? Any merriment when, in his waking dreams, he sees the 
tormentors come before their time, and already feels the horrors of 
hell ? Young men ! young men ! if you have any longing for the 
short life and the merry, visit the chamber of the man who is suffer- 
ing under delirium tremens ; see his maniac terror, and hear his 
agonizing shrieks, as one horror after another presents itself to his 
diseased vision, and you will see what the merry life is of which he 
has boasted. His fate may be yours. Beware of the tempter ! 
Touch not, taste not the infuriated draught. Let the contents of 
the poisoned cup never pass your lips. I will not take the religious 
view of such a deplorable case. The respected minister of the ad- 
joining chapel will deliver a sermon on the subject of abstinence on 
Sunday night. Hear him. In the meantime think, with dread and 
shuddering, on the death-bed of a man whose life departs in a fit of 
raging madness, induced by drink. — English Speaker. 



I'm Too Young. 

A DIALOGUE. 

" I think, George, I am too young to be a tetotaler ; it is a very 
good thing for you, but I am too young.'' 

u Are you too young to know right from wrong, Jane ?" 

" Why now I think you are laughing at me, George ! Why I'm 
in the Bible class at school. I shall be nine next birth-day, and you 
ask me if I know right from wrong !" 

" Well, Jane, don't be angry — you complained of being too 
young just now ; but if you know right from wrong, why total ab- 
stinence from strong drinks is right, and drinking them is wrong. 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 15 

And if you are not too young to knoiv, you can't be too young to 
do, what is right." 

" I never do drink, George, only a glass of wine at our school 
breaking up, and a little taste of punch with Uncle John, when 
I go to see him — that's all." 

' ; Are you in the habit of often seeing people drink these drinks ?" 

" Oh, no, George ! My parents are tetotalers, you know. We have 
no such drinks at home. I only see them at Uncle John's, and at 
our breaking up." 

" Why, Jane, in that case, you take them as often as you can 
get them, and the drunkard does no more." 

" Dear me ! how harshly you speak — comparing me to a drunk- 
ard ! Who ever heard of a little girl being a drunkard ?" 

11 Little girls grow to be women ; and women, Jane, are some- 
times so lost, as to be drunkards. I have read in the works of a 
great poet these words, ' The child is father to the man ;' meaning, 
that the habits we get in childhood, grow with us. Do you think 
the strip of muslin you are hemming would ever be done by you, if 
you never began it ? " 

" What a simple question ! Why to be sure it would not." 

" Well, simple as it is, the case of poor lost drunkards is like 
that strip of muslin. Every drop they took, from the very first 
beginning, helped on to the completion of their bad habit, as 
surely as every stitch you take helps on till the whole is completed. 
Is not that plain ?" 

" Why yes, it seems so." 

" Every thing, Jane, both good and evil, must have a beginning ; 
and the habits we get in childhood are often so strong, we can 
never throw them off. You mentioned, just now, Uncle John and 
his punch ; and you know he learned to take strong drink in his 
youth in the Navy, and now he is quite disabled with gout. What 
is the reason he does not become a tetotaler ?" 

" Oh, he says he is too old, and that he learned to drink in his 
youth." 

" He was not too young, Jane, to learn to drink ! You think 
yourself too young to learn to abstain." 

" Oh, if ever I thought for a moment I should be a drunkard, I 
would not think myself too young." 



16 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

"And do you suppose any one ever does think of becoming a 
drunkard ? : ' 

" Why, no ; I dare say they get into a bad habit before they are 
at all aware of it. But, George, how could I refuse to take wine, 
at the breaking up— I should be laughed at." 

1 ' And would you do wrong fcr fear of being laughed at ? Oh r 
that is not like a child who reads her Bible. You know you 
should do your duty, through good report and through evil report. 
Some wicked people laugh at religion— would you be ashamed of 
religion on that account?" 

" Oh no ! for our Lord has said, ' Whosoever is ashamed of me 
before men, of him will I be ashamed.' " 

" Well then, why be ashamed of tetotalism, which is a plain 
carrying out the command, ' Do good, as you have opportunity, to 
all men.' " 

" Well, I think I have been wrong." 

" I think you have, Jane. You are not too young to read your 
Bible, and to understand parts of it, Neither are you too young 
to be a Christian. How then can you be too young to understand 
this plain fact, that if you would forever avoid the snare of intem- 
perance yourself, and set a good example of perfect sobriety to 
others, you must abstain from drinks that cause intemperance." 

" Well, George, I thought it did not much matter about children 
being tetotalers ; but you have taught me better. I see that we 
are never too young to do that which is right." — English Tract. 



The Maniac's Plea. 

There is something remarkably touching in the following plea. 
It is the plea of the poor maniac with the rumseller to stop sellings 
when no other plea will avail. If there is a liquor-dealer who can 
read it, and then go calmly to his work of destroying immortal 
minds, he must be hardened indeed. 

There's none can j>lead, as plead I can, 
With him who takes, for gain, 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. H 

The reason from his brother man, 
He can't restore again. 

Send Me — my plea I'll utter loud 

Upon the howling gale, 
And he shall hear all night abroad 

The drunken maniac wail. 

If bridal tears nor infant cries, 

Nor manly pleas he'll hear, 
The drunken maniac's voice shall rise 

To Heaven's avenging ear." 



What's the Kami ? 

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN JAMES AND HIS FATHER. 

What's the harm, father, in taking a little ? A little does not 
get a man drunk. 

Well, James, wbat'3 the use in taking a little? You must 
always have a motive in all you do. If it neither does you good or 
harm, you had better let it alone. 

But it does do me good, father. It makes me feel nicely. I can 
almost jump a five-rail fence. 

Well, what good is there in that ? You was not made to jump 
five-rail fences, nor to fly in the air, but to walk on the ground. 
Now certainly it does not help men walk. See poor Joe Thomp- 
son, how he staggers along. But suppose it does you good, does it 
do nobody else an injury ? Think of that. The Apostle Paul 
said, u It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything 
whereby thy brother stumbleth." Now if it injures another, as a 
generous and noble-hearted boy, I should think ycu would let it 
alone. 

Oh ; Father ! you're always so serious. 

But you asked me what's the harm. I did not tell you there 
would be any harm to you, but there is to others. The little drop 
has made ten thousand drunkards, and ten thousand miserable 



18 -. •-"- THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

drunkards' families, and would it not be better if the work of death 
could all be stopped ? Did you ever look into the large end of a 
spy- glass ? 

Yes, Sir. 

Well, away as far as you can see, is a very small object ; now it 
is so in the drunkard's course. If you stand at his end and look 
afar back, you will see, in the extreme distance, the first glass. 
If you ever become a drunkard, and it would be most horrid thought 
to me that you should be one, you could trace it all back to this 
little which you think you can drink without harm. Here would 
begin your downward course ; and Oh, could you speak in your 
last moments, as you were dying a drunkard's death, you would 
say, what harm there was in my taking a little ! Now, James, if 
you never take a little, you'll never take a great deal. What then 
will you do ! 

Why, father, I think I'll never take a little. 



The Song of the Siver. 

I spring from the rock, from the mountain side f 

Sparkling, pure and bright, 
And I gather strength as I rapidly glide, 

From my birth-place into light. 

Richness I bear to land and tree, „ 

Beauty to hill and dale ; 
Beast and bird, delight in me, 

Drink, and are strong and hale. 

Fresh are the flowers that deck my banks, 

The sod is greenest there, 
And the warbling wing'd ones sing their thanks ; 

As they drink of me every where. 

I am the only drink was giver 

To man, when pure and free, 
j^etum then to the streams of heaven, 

You're safe when you drink of me. 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 19 s 

Speech of a Lieutenant of a Cold Water Army. 



BY MASTER C. C. BROWN. 



Mr. President : — History tells us that Hamilcar, the father of 
Hannibal, the great Carthaginian general, made his son, at the age 
of nine years, swear eternal enmity to Rome. Now, sir, Rome 
never injured Carthage as much as Alcohol has injured my country, 
and here I vow eternal hostility to that implacable enemy. My 
honored father did not, it is true, extort this vow from me ; but I 
know he will stand sponsor for it as soon as it is born, and would 
delight to toll the bell at the funeral of the Monster. 

Now, Mr. President, I know I am little. I wish, for the sake of 
the cause I advocate, I was greater — the world should hear from 
me as it docs from you, sir, beyond the limits of this convention 
room. But mark me : I am not alone. Look around you ; what 
a spectacle is here ! Behold the scores of unstained banners, and 
these hundreds of bright, young eyes, and ruddy cheeks, and pure 
hearts, that are all rallied in the same holy crusade against a dead- 
ly enemy that has ravaged our country and cursed our ancestry for 
centuries past. Now, Sir, the insects are small, but their name is 
" Legion," and this King of w Id beasts shall yet howl and shrink 
under the stings and bites of our gathering swarms, when they set- 
tle upon his flanks. " What now can we do ?" Why, sir, I hope 
some of us may show profitable examples to older heads, and by our 
cold water habits, and our virtues, and even by our tears, may in- 
duce some of those we love, and whose warm blood runs in our own 
veins, to turn this festering domestic curse out of doors — save the 
cents that have heretofore gone for liquor— cruel, quarrelsome, 
murderous liquor — and turn it into books, clothes, and bread, for a 
happy, smiling family. Is it asked again, " What can we do ?" 
I answer, we do not expect always to remain children. The big 
oaks of the forest that shade the lands now, furnish the beams for 
our navy, and the columns for our temples, were, fifty or a hundred 
years ago. but small, tender saplings. Thus these hundreds of 
youth will soon have reached maturity, and the destinies of Church 
and^State will fall upcn our shoulders, when our beloved fathers and 



20 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

mothers are gone to their rest. Then, if we are faithful to our 
pledges, no power under Heaven can prevent us from making 
sober citizens, every one of us. — Georgia Banner. 



Clear the Way. 



BY CHARLES MACKAY, ENGLAND. 



Men of thought ! be up and stirring, 

Night and day ; 
Sow the seed — withdraw the curtain — 

Clear the w.iy ! 

Men of action, aid and cheer them, 

As ye may ! 
There's a fount about to stream, 
There's a light about to gleam, 
There's a warmth about to glow, 
There's a flower about to blow, 
There's a midnight darkness changing 

Into gray. 
Men of thought, and men of action, 

Clear the way ! 

Once the welcome light has broken ; 

Who shall say, 
What the unimagined glories 

Of the day, — 
What the evil that shall perish 

In its ray ? 
Aid the dawning, tongue and pen ; 
Aid it, hopes of honest men ! 
Aid it, paper — aid it, type — 
Aid it, for the hour is ripe, 
And our earnest must not slacken 

Into play. 
Men of thought, and men of action, 

Clear the way ! 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 21 

Lo ! a cloud's about to vanish 

From the clay, 
And a brazen wrong to crumble 

Into clay. 
Lo ! the right's about to conquer, 

Clear the way ! 
With that right shall many more 
Enter smiling at the door ; 
With the giant wrong shall fall 
Many others, great and small, 
That for ages long have held us 

For their prey. 
Men of thought, and men of action, 

Clear the way ! 



The Fallen Youth. 



He was the hope of his father ; his mother's soul was bound up 
in him ; he was an only child ; his form majestic to his parents' 
eyes, and his voice was music in their ears. This three-fold cord 
was not easily broken. It was composed of a thousand silken 
fibres, none of which could be sundered without iuflicting a death- 
like pang. 

Twenty-two years had scarcely passed from the morniDg which 
gave him birth, "when the nuptial ceremonies between him and a 
lady as fair and innocent as an angel, were celebrated. It was a 
glad day. He loved his wife. Her paradise was formed, and she 
gloried in nothing but her husband. Two years passed away, and 
the sun, as it rose above the horizon, darted its first beams upon 
the infant son of that loved pair. Angels saw it, and they sang. 
Heaven saw it, and bade all nature smile his approbation forth. 
Young Edmund (for so shall I call his name) was now a father. 
The day was fine. He walked forth and met the greeting of his 
friends. 'Twas the custom to acknowledge the title of the youthful 
heir by health — liquid fire given and received. Now he took the 
social glass ; they were merry, and he took the second ; he thought 



22 . THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

he would take no more, but they urged him, he feared to be un- 
generous, and he took the third ; his reason reeled, and he took the 
fourth. In a word he was drunk. He staggered home ; but ! 
the grief, the surprise, the shame that overwhelmed that wife and 
those aged parents. They remonstrated, expostulated, plead, and 
prayed. He gave pledges of reform, but all was in vain. " Wine 
was a mocker, strong drink was raging." The subsequent history 
was short. The grey hairs of his parents came down with sorrow to 
the grave. His wife lingered out a few miserable years, when she 
was released by the mandates of death. He was a wretch, forsaken 
of God and man, and I suppose, before this, has gone to meet his 
doom. Would it were a solitary case. But, alas ! there are thou- 
sands such. — J". Woodman. 



Frozen to Death. 

The following lines were written on seeing a man who was frozen 
to death, while under the influence of liquor : 

Yes ! ye who for money 

The spirit imbrute, 
Go look at your labor — ■ 

J Tis terrible fiuit. 
You dealt him the poison, 

And bade him depart, 
While the fire was burning 

The blood of his heart. 

Gaze ! gaze on the victim 

Ye poisoned for gain ! 
And think of his death-throes, 

Then murder again. 
Be active in slaying — 

Lost spirits in hell, 
Approving, will give you 

Three cheers and a yell. 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 23 

The lone wife is weeping, 

The children in tears — 
What is it but music 

To the rumseller's ears ? 
He feasts on their sorrows, 

Grows fat on their sighs, 
And is lifted to glory 

When death shuts their eyes. 

Kemernber, nien-kiilers, 

The day of hot doom, 
When devils incarnate 

Will make for you room. 
Your dark deeds of horror 

Will feed your despair, 
'Mid your groans of keen anguish 

For a breath of cool air. 



Confession of Charles Lamb. 



THE DISTINGUISHED AUTHOR OF THE "ESSAYS OF ELIA." 



" The waters have gone over me." But out of the black depths ; 
could I be heard, I wou!d cry out to all those who have but set a 
foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth, to whom the flavor of 
his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life, or the enter- 
ing upon some newly discovered paradise, look into my desolation, 
and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when a man 
shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a pas- 
sive will — to see his destruction and have no power to stop it, and 
yet to feel it all the way emanating from himself— to perceive all 
goodness emptied out of him, and yet not to be able to forget a 
time when it was otherwise — to bear about the piteous spectacle of 
his own self ruin :— could he see my fevered eye, feverish with last 
night's drinking, and feverishly looking forward for this night's 
repetition of the folly — could he feel the body of the death out of 



24 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

which I cry hourly with feebler outcry to be delivered — it were 
enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth in 
all the pride of its mantling temptation — to make him clasp his 
teeth, 

And not undo 'em, 

To suffer wet damnation to run thro' 'em. 



A Young Man's First Glass. 

The feelings of a young man, when recovering from the effects 
Df his first spree, are not to be envied. It is his first obvious ad- 
vance in the Drunkard's career, a career which his own observa- 
tions teach him, ends only in misery and death. His self-respect 
is shocked, and he feels as though he could not again face his 
friends and the world, with the same high consciousness of worth 
and manhood as heretofore. He feels that he is in imminent 
danger of becoming that worst of outcasts, a confirmed drunkard, 
a burden and disgrace to his friends and the community. The 
physical suffering which he endures, is nothing to his mental tor- 
ture. It seems to him as though every person whom he meets is 
aware of his disgrace, and that all must look upon him as a ruined 
and degraded man. Manifold are his resolutions of reformation 
and caution for the future. 

But after a time all this passes off, and ere long he may again be 
seen quaffing the poisonous draught, and joining in the, senseless 
ribaldry and laughter of the bar-room ; and almost ere he is aware 
of it, he again becomes intoxicated by the maddening liquors, and 
repeats those scenes of debauchery which before filled him with 
horror and disgust. 

This is repeated again and again, until his self-respect is gone, 
and he becomes what his own reason should have taught him was 
inevitable, a drunkard, a poor, miserable, degraded drunkard, 
despised by all who know him, and an outcast from all respectable 
society. A few months, or years, perhaps, roll on, and he passes 
from this life, his soul returns to him who gave it, to render an 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 25 

account of the deeds done on earth, to be judged, and I fear, to be 
doomed to pass an eternity of woe in the society of devils and evil 
spirits like itself, while his body is consigned to the drunkard's 
grave,7' unwept, unhonored, and unanea^d." 



The Boy with his Twenty Reasons. 



A DIALOGUE. 



George Carter and his Companions. 



" Come, George Carter, we are going in here, to Mr. Bill's sa- 
loon, to get some right good champagne ; come, go in with us." 

M No, I thank you, — I believe not." 

" Believe not ! but why not ; '' do give a reason." 

" Why," if I must give you a reason, I must. I don't want any." 

" Don't want any; that's no reason. You might not want a 
peach, yet if you was to go where there were some, you would eat 
half a dozen, and relish them too." 

" I'm just as well without it." 

1 ' Ah ! you don't know that till you try it." 

" But I'm better without it." 

" Oh ! you condemn a thing you know nothing about ! " 

" But I fear it will create an appetite for it.' ? 

" Oh, that you can control." 

" But I should lose my self-respect, if I should go into a drinking 
house, and be seen drinking." 

"Ah! that's pride." 

" And I should lose too, the respect and esteem of others." 

" What care you for others, so long as you do as you please ? '' 

" Well, I should set some boy a bad example, and be the means 
of injuring him." 

" Ha, ha, are you going to be regulated by every sap-head who 
does not know how to take care of himself 1 " 
3 



26 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

" But if I once begin to drink with you, I shall create thirst, 
and like you, always be thinking about drink, and craving it ; now, 
it seldom comes into my mind." 

"Well, if a man is thirsty there is a pleasure in quenching 
thirst." 

" But the creation of thirst is followed by disease. I am now 
healthy and mean to remain so." 

" nonsense, as if you were more healthy than we are." 

" All drunkards are made out of moderate drinkers ; now if I am 
never a moderate drinker, I shall not be a drunkard." 

" Well, that will be your own fault if you are." 

" But I do not choose to expose myself to it ; those that never 
bathe in shoal water will not get into deep." 

" Then you will never have the pleasure of swimming at all." 

" If I go with you, I must leave the cold water army and go on 
to the other side." 

" Oh, these distinctions are invidious." 

" I must support the rum trade." 

" The rum trade will live, whether you do or not." 

" And vote for the license system." 

" The Legislature fixes that and not you." 

" And be responsible for all the evil it does." 

" Queer notions you have. Who is going to hold you respon- 
sible?" 

" And have some poor drunkard hanging on to me, by and by, 
and saying, * I'm on your side.' " 

" 0, you can shake him off." 

" And perhaps some early friend, saying, ' I drank because you 
drank, and was allured to destruction.' " 

" How many more bugbears have you, George ? " 

" I don't call them bugbears, but substantial facts ; and if you 
want any more, I tell you that the world is full of drunkenness, and 
I'll not help to increase the evil." 

" What, pray, can be the influence of boys like us ? " 

" Well, be it great or little, it is what we are responsible for, — 
you want me to drink to please you, I choose not to for the opposite 
reason that it will hurt the feelings of many friends." 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 27 

" Well, if you have friends whose company you like better than 
ours, good bye ; but we think you had better go in and take a 
drink." 

" I can't, good friends, and if the reasons I have given you are 
not sufficient, I have one more, and that you may take and do what 
you please with it ; — I have signed the pledge, and there is 
the end of the matter." 



The Death of the Intemperate. 



It is a sad death. There is no comfort on that dying pillow. 
No sweet repose. No voice of friendship, bidding adieu. No 
lighting up of joy in the departing spirit. 

It is a frequent death. Three, every hour, go through its 
gates in our own land. 

It is an early death. Few drunkards live out half their days. 

It is an unlamented death. " I'm glad he is gone," is the 
common saying, as the bell announces the solemn event. Even his 
family look for comfort, now that he is no more. 

Let it be soberly contemplated — 

1. By the moderate drinker. — It may be his. 

2. By the vender. — He has filled the bottle and done the deed. 

3. By the magistrate.— He signed the license. 

4. By the heedless parent. — It may yet be the death of his own 
son. 

5. If not too late, by the drunkard himself. — And 0! let him 
escape, as for his life. 

Habit hurries him onward. 
Appetite hurries him onward. 
Sickness hurries him onward. 
The vender hujries him onward. 
Satan hurries him onward. 
But, oh, his end ! 

M Stop, poor drunkard, stop and think, 
Before it be too late ! ' ' 

—/. Marsh. 



28 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 



An Affectionate Appeal to Christian Moderationists. 



Ye friends of moderation, 
Who think a reformation, 
Or moral renovation, 
Would benefit our nation ; 
Who deem intoxication, 
With all its dissipation, 
In every rank and station, 
The cause of degradation ; 
Of which your observation 
Gives daily demonstration, 
Who see the ruination, 
Distress and desolation, 
The open violation 
Of moral obligation ; 
The -wretched habitation, 
Without accommodation, 
Or any regulation, 
For common sustentation ; 
A scene of deprivation, 
Unequalled in creation : 
The frequent desecration, 
Of Sabbath ordination, 
The crime and depredation, 
Defying legislation, 
The awful profanation, 
Of common conversation, 
The mental aberration, 
And dire infatuation, 
With every sad gradation, 
To maniac desperation. 
Ye who with consternation, 
Behold this devastation, 
And utter condemnation, 
On all inebriation : 
Why sanction its duration ? 
Or show disapprobation 
Of any combination, 
For its extermination ? 
Without prevarication, 
We deem a declaration, 
That offers no temptation, 
By any palliation, 
Of this abomination, 



The only sure foundation, 
For total extirpation ; 
And under this persuasion, 
Hold no communication, 
With noxious emanation, 
Of brewer 's fermentation, 
Or poisonous preparation, 
Of spirit distillation ; 
Nor any vain libation, 
Producing stimulation. 
To this determination, 
We call consideration, 
And without hesitation, 
Invite cooperation, 
Not doubting imitation, 
Without provocation, 
Will raise your estimation 
Afford you consolation, 
And by its adaptation, 
To cure this inflammation, 
Insure your approbation. 
And by your advocation, 
Excite the admiration, 
Of our poisoned population, 
And the acceleration, 
Of entire abrogation, 
Of this assassination ; 
Till wfth holy adoration, 
All shout with acclamation, 
The praise of their salvation, 
To God's administration, 
For this annihilation, 
Of life's abbreviation, 
And in participation, 
With this association, 
You may by application, 
Ensure the preservation, 
Of a future generation, 
From all contamination, 
And may each indication, 
Of such regeneration, 
Be the theme of exaltation, 
Till its final consummation. 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 29 

From the S. C. Temperance Advocate. 

A Certain Old Man. 



The old man sat in his old arm chair, 

Drink, Drink, Drink ; 
The fire was dull and the night was drear, 

Drink, Drink, Drink ; 
His house was old, his cattle were poor, 
The fences all down, the barn had no door, 
But there he sat, on the ricketty floor, 

Drink, Drink, Drink ; 
He had sat in his chair from morn till night, 

Drink, Drink, Drink ; 
Until he presented a most horrible sight, 

Drink, Drink, Drink ; 
His money was gone, his liquor ran low, 
And what he should do, he did not know. 

For Drink, Drink, Drink ; 
But finally a thought came into his head, 
(For he would have rum, if he had no bread,) 

Drink, Drink, Drink ; 
He would mortgage his farm to old John Sligh, 
To provide him with liquor when he was dry, 
For he feared that without it, he soon would die, 

Drink, Drink, Drink ; 
But now it's all gone, and he's broken down, 
And his family have all come on the town, 
Because the old man his reason would drown 

With Drink, Drink, Drink ; 
Young Men ! if you wish for misery — death, 
Then continue to pollute your natural breath 

With Drink, Drink, Drink ; 
If you wish your children to go hungry and cold, 
And would be a beggar when you are old, 
Then shell out your silver, shell out your gold, 

For Drink, Drink, Drink. 



i 



30 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

The Temperance Boy. 

I'm a Temperance Boy of the Cold Water Army ; 

I drink neither spirits nor wine : 
Yon may laugh, if you please, but it never can harm me, 

While Water, pure Water, is mine. 

The Cold Water Boys are not easily daunted ; 

We know very well what we've done ; 
We've enlisted for life, and our standards are planted ; 

We're not to be dashed by your fun. 

The pledge that we've taken will spoil your vocation ; 

" No License ! — No License !" — we cry ; 
We' 11 ring it loud through the State and the Nation, 

Determined to conquer or die. 

Then away with your bumper ! come, fill up your glasses 

With water all sparkling and clear ; 
And here's to all Temperance laddies and lasses, 

A happy— a happy New Year. 



The Cadet and Rumseller. 

R. S. Good morning, my little fallow — fine morning — going to 
school ? 

G. Yes, sir. 

R. S. Let me see what books you have. Ha ! Algebra ! Trig- 
onometry! — Studying mathematics; well, that's good. It fits a 
man for all business. Preparing to be a clerk, I suppose ? 

C. Think of going engineering, by and by. I like to be out in 
the open air, and engaging in some good enterprise. 

R. S. Wel ! , what will you get, my lad ? Poor wages, I reckon. 
I've seen a number of fine young men engage for a time in these 
schemes, and then break down, with no regular business. Come, 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 31 

go in with me in my store, and by and by I'll give you a partner- 
ship. 

0. What is your business, sir, ii you please ? 

R. S. 0, buying and selling groceries, liquors, &c. 

C. Liquors, sir ! What kind of liquors? 

R. S. 0, rum, brandy, gin ; good wines— only the best. 

0. What is your object, sir, if you please, in selling these ? 

R. S. Object ; why, that is a pretty bold question, my lad ; 
my object is to get a living, and I will help you get one too. You 
are too nice a lad to be out in the mud and snow, summer and win- 
ter, travelling through woods and swamps, and over mountains, with 
small pay. You don't know how easy it is just to make out a bill 
with fifty or one hundred per cent, profit, and live at home as ele- 
gantly as I do. 

C. Bat does your trade do anybody any good, sir ? 

R. S. 0, yes ! what could the sick do without wine, and me- 
chanics and artists without alcohol ? 

C. But does it not do a great deal of hurt, sir ? 

R. S 0, that is not my look-out ! Liquor is a good creature 
of God, and if men drink carefully, it does no harm ; besides, as 
long as I don't do the drinking, it don't hurt me. 

C. But are you not responsible sir. for the evil your business 
does in the community ? I should not like to be in a business 
where I should be held responsible for an evil my business is doing 

R. S. Why, you are really a bright lad ; I guess you are a cold 
water lad, and have learnt your manners in some of these tempe- 
rance meetings. 

C. Yes, sir, I am all that, and thick I should rather beg my 
bread than sell rum, and make other men beggars. I think sir 
you will find it hard getting any clerks in our school ; we are all 
teetotalers, and pretty staunch ones, too. I must go, sir, or I shall 
be late. (Exit.) 

R. S. Well, I know uot what I shall do. That is the sixth 
boy I have tried, and they are all alike. Ten years ago an adver- 
tisement would have brought fifty applicants. I have now adver- 
tised ten days, and not one comes, I believe I shall have to give 
up my business. 



32 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

A Good Time Coming. 

There is a good time coming, 

Though we cannot fix the date ; 
Bat yet 'tis surely on the way 

At telegraphic rate. 
What though the dram-shops still increase, 

And pauper taxes too ; 
We should not let our efforts cease, 
While there's so much to do. 
O, my country ! 
Sweet land of liberty ! 
We'll boldly face and strike the foe 
Who seeks to injure thee. 

And for this good time coming, 

Let us sing, and work, and pray, 
When tippling shops and taverns 

Will not lead us astray ; 
When grain no more to poison's made, 

By passing through the still, 
And all mankind avoid that trade 
Which doth their natures kill, 
0, my country ! 
Sweet land of liberty ! 
We'll boldly face and strike the foe 
Who seeks to injure thee. 



The Vender Creates the Appetite. 

" I never sell to a drunken man/' says the smiling publican. But 
this does not help out his cause. If he never sells to a drunkard, 
he sells to the moderate user, and, according to his ability, 
strengthens the appetite for drink in that moderate drinker, and he 
helps to make him a drunkard. The first glass is the key which 
unlocks the door ; the second removes the bars ; the third lifts the 
latch • the fourth drives out sobriety and settles insobriety in the 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 33 

house. As many days, or even months, as we have counted glasses 
may be necessary to accomplish this ; but it is done, and the youth 
or the man or woman, from temperance, is converted into a mode- 
rate user. He that induced the future vietim to use the first glass, 
is responsible for the formation of the appetite, and may be more 
criminal in the sight of G-od than any other who may administer 
the glass in future. The first glass may be the wedge which splits 
to pieces the character — the approving conscience — nay, the soul 
itself. It is the first glass which is so fraught with woe. It is the 
" little " at first — and then, because used at first, used again — it is 
this little which accomplishes the dire evil in the end. But whether 
it be by one glass, or a thousand moderately used, the appetite is 
formed, and the appetite must be satisfied. The drunkard's disease 
is contracted, and it is a disease which is contracted only by falling 
into the hands of the merchant or retail vender. — Rev. J. Nourse. 



The Drunkard's Alphabet. 

SPEECH FOE A LITTLE BOY. 

A for abstain ; stroog drink never touch. 

B for a bottle ; there's danger in such. 

C for a cup ; beware what you take. 

D for a drunkard, that strong drink will make. 

E is for eyes ; but a drunkard can't see. 

F is a fool, which a drunkard will be. 

G is for gaol ) he often gets there. 

H is for house, with its sorrows to bear. 

I is for ill ; he is oft very bad. 

J is for jolly ; but he soon must be sad. 

K is for kitchen ; there is little in his. 

L is for laziness ; plenty of this. 

M is for mirth ; but his case it makes worse. 

N is for nothing ; which he has in his purse. 

is for open ; the grave gapes for him. 



34 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

P is for pain ; that he has in each limb. 

Q for the question ; " to hell shall I go ?" 

E for the ruin, that drunkards must know. 

S is for sickness, and sorrow, and sin. 

T is for trembling and terror within. 

U is for useful, to hear his sad end. 

V is for vice ; may we all live to mend ! 
W is for woe, when he's laid in the dust. 

X stands for tho Cross, the sinner's sole trust. 

Y for the yew-tree, that grows on his grave. 
Z for Zaccheus, whom Jesus did save. 

And so He will save all for mercy who pray ; 

"Amen ; save us, Lord ! " now let us all say.— Truth Teller. 



The Cadets and their Companions. 

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO CADETS AND TWO OLD COMPANIONS. 



1st Companion. — Good morning, friend Carpenter ; I understand 
you are aiming at West Point, and design to be a military man. 

1st Cadet. — How so ; what would you be at ? 

1st Comp. — Why I heard you had become a Cadet ; so I was ex- 
pecting to see you with a cap and cockade, and a dirk at your side. 
I hardly expected you would speak to an old friend. 

1st Cadet.— I have enlisted for fight, but not with such weap- 
ons as you imagine. We have enlisted in a war against King Al- 
cohol ; and if he was the size of Goliath, and we are only Davids 
with our sling and stone, we will soon lay him in the dust. 

2d Comp. — Pray who is this great enemy, against whom you are 
directing your lance ? 

1st Cadet. — One, I suspect, in whose service you are ; for I saw 
you both last evening paying him homage. 

2d Comp. — I paying him homage ; what do you mean^ I pay 
homage to none. 

1st Cadet. — To none ? Did I not see you last evening, as I 
passed Mr. Wilson's saloon, paying a tax there which he had 
levied upon you ; and then drinking his health and prosperity ? 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 35 

2d Comp. — I pay homage to none ; I was only pursuing my own 
pleasure. 

2d Cadet — That is the way, my friend, that he keeps you in 
bondage. He makes you believe that you are your own master ; 
and when he brings you to this ; he has you in his power. If you 
saw that you was in bondage to your worst enemy, there would be 
some hope of your deliverance. We were once just where you are ; 
we saw how he was dragging us down to death, and we waged war 
with the tyrant, and broke loose from him ; and now we have en- 
listed with the Cadets of Temperance, and we have resolved on 
giving him battle so that he shall be routed from the land, and 
never again gorge himself with his helpless victims. 

1st Comp. — Why you talk wild ; a little Quixotic, I suspect. We 
see no such terrible foe binding us in chains. 

1st Cadet. — Did you never see a poor drunkard lying in the 
street, unable to rise or walk ? Did you never see a raving ma- 
niac, with the delirium tremens upon him, and hear him cry for 
Help, Help ? That is the way he may bind you before you are 
aware, Do you know what he puts into your cup ? 

1st Comp. — What ! I guess we do. Do ycu think we do not 
know what pare wine, and good brandy, and wholesome ale and 
beer are ? 

2d Cadet. — If you will bring me a glass of pure wine, I will give 
you a handsome sum for it ; and as for brandy, that, in these days 
is out of the question. Whisky is turned into brandy by means of 
sulphuric acid, nitric acid, prussic acid, and fusel oil. Would you 
take any of these things into your mouths under their proper names? 

2d Comp. — We cannot believe you. 

2d Cadet. — We do not ask you to believe us ; but we ask ycu 
to believe the best medical authorities in the land ; and we bid you 
beware. The w Cadets of Temperance are engaged in a war without 
end against Alcohol and all his helpers. We have many thousands 
enlisted ; and when we bring out our forces and march through the 
streets, we shake his capitol to its foundation, for he knows we shall 
soon be men, and never flinch from the conflict. 

1st Comp.— We surely admire your valor, and think if what 
you say is true, we shall no longer be held in bondage. 



36 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 



When is the time to Sign ? 



I asked the blooming sportive Boy, 

" Say — will you come and sign ? 
Health beams within that glist'ning eye ; 

Now is the golden time." 
But " No," he cried, and shook his head 

' ' Now is the time for play ? 
I cannot, will not, yet," he said, 

And bounded on his way. 

I asked him when a Youth, but then 

He stopped me with alarm — 
1 ' Nay, leave the pledge for grave old men 

A drop can do no harm. 
Youth is the time for mirth and joy, 

I'll live thus while I can ; 
Your sober scheme perchance I'll try 

When I am quite a man." 

I asked a man of middle age — 

How gleamed his fiery eye ! 
Such fearful signs his frame betrayed, 

They gave a full reply : 
For many years had firmly fixed 

The tyrant's iron chain, 
His all for drink he'd madly risked ; 

To ask him now was vain. 

I questioned next an Aged Man — 

A miserable form : 
His course of life had nearly run, 

Each short-lived pleasure gone. 
" Man !" he cried, in accents wild, 

With anguish on his brow ; 
" Would I had signed it when a child ; 

I cannot do it now ! ' ' —Selected. 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 37 



The Suffering of Woman. 



SPEECH FOR A LITTLE GIRL. 

Whilst the friends of humanity have been engaged in assisting 
the reformed drunkard in his noble efforts for self-emancipation and 
self-elevation, have they not been too negligent as it regards his suf- 
fering wife and abused children ? Have we visited them with our 
charities and sympathies ? Have we considered their destitution, 
their deep physical and mental depression, the utter helplessness of 
their lot, their long night of agony, their hunger and nakedness, 
their complete, their utter despair ? Have not the earlier friends 
of the drunkard's wife— the companions of her girlhood — those, it 
may be, who went to the school and the same church with her — who 
hand in hand, and heart knit to heart, grew up side by side — who 
remember her once happy smile and pleasing disposition — have they 
not passed her by with a cold, and even scornful look, for no other 
reason than because she was the most wretched and forlorn of hu- 
man beings — a drunkard's wife ? In doing thus, have they not 
visited upon her, the iniquities of her husband ? Have they not 
despised her, and withdrawn from her their society and friendship 
not because she was unworthy of their regard — not because she 
had pressed to her lip the drunkard's bowl, or degraded herself by 
the vice — not because she had been guilty of crime, nor because 
she was less a woman than ever, but solely because the husband of 
her youth had become a miserable and shameless drunkard ? Was 
it her fault that her husband became what he is ? When she 
plighted to him her vows of affection and fidelity, was he not all 
that is manly and generous ? Did her young companions blame 
her for uniting her destiny with his ? No. When the bridal 
wreath was twined around her brows, and she stood before the 
hymeneal altar, did not their young hearts almost envy her, as she 
took the hand ef her now degraded husband, who swore in the 
frankness and generosity of a noble nature, to love, cherish, and 
4 



38 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

protect her in weal and woe ? Let them but trace the downward 
career of that husband, as, step by step, glass by glass, he fell from 
his high estate, until he became a vile and loathsome thing, neg- 
lected his family, abused his wife— and instead of despising the bro- 
ken-hearted creature, they will deeply commiserate her lot, and 
endeavor to alleviate her sorrows. — S- Car, Advocate. 



Tip for the Right 



Up for the Bight ! God's high decree, 

Immovable and strong, 
Landmark and beacon on the sea 

Of conflict with the wrong. 

Let not the gilded den decoy 

The pure from paths of truth ; 
First tempt, then ruin, then destroy 

Our country's hope, the Youth. 

Protection to our Altars send, 

Stay the Destroyer's hand ; 
Our sons, our sires, our hopes defend — 

God by your side shall stand. 

When will this moral carnage cease, 

And slaughtered wreck's of men, 
Of homes, of fortunes, and of peace, 

Rise up to life again ! 

On, then, ye champions of the Right, 

Ye men of courage true ; 
Keep Prohibition's goal in sight — 

No backward step for you ! 

No more let tears of blood be shed 

For licensed death and woes — 
Down with the trade, forever down I 

Though demons may oppose. 

— J. P. PralL 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER, 89 



Drinking Customs. 

Do what you will for the good of man, these customs are a blight, 
a worm at the root. You may feed, clothe, and educate the poor? 
but as long as they touch, taste, or handle strong drink, your good 
works will, in great measure, be lost. Is you give them money, it 
will go to the dram-shop. If you give them bread, it will be turn- 
ed into strong drink. If you give them clothes, they will go to the 
pawnbroker's to be turned into money to go to the whisky shop. If 
you educate them, this may possibly be the greatest charity of all 
the three, and the most likely to lead to habits of manly self-sup- 
porting independence ; but it is much more likely that the young 
plant, reared on a soil daily moistened with strong drink, will be 
blighted and withered by its pestilential influences, and become a 
cumberer of the ground and a more deadly curse to society. On 
this account it is of the utmost importance that total abstinence be 
introduced as a part of the education of every day-school and of 
every Sabbath-school. — Rev. T. Johnson. 



Sources of Happiness. 



If young men imagine that the gratification of appetite is the 
great source of enjoyment, they will find this, in the highest degree, 
with industry and temperance. The epicure who seeks it in a 
dinner which costs five dollars, will find less enjoyment of appetite 
than the laborer who dines on a shilling. If the devotee of appe- 
tite desires its highest gratification, he must not send for buffalo 
tongues, but climb a mountain or swing an axe. Without health, 
there is no delicacy that can provoke an appetite. Whoever des- 
troys his health, turns the most delicious viands into ipecac and 
aloes. The man that is physically wicked does not live out half his 
days ; and he is not half alive while he does live. However gracious 
God may be with the heart, he never pardons the stomach. 



40 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

Let a young man pursue a course of temperance, sobriety, and 
industry, and lie may retain his vigor till three score years and ten 
with his cup of enjoyment full, and depart painlessly ; — as the can- 
dle burns out in its socket, he will expire. 

But look at the opposite. When a man suffers his appetite to 
control him, he turns his dwelling into a lazar house, whether he 
lives in a hovel, clothed with rags, or in the splendid mansions and 
gorgeous clothing of the upper ten. 

Let every young man look on this picture and then on that, and 
tell which he will choose.— -Horace Mann. 



Take a Little. 



SPEECH FOR A LITTLE BOY. 



Take a little rum, 

The less you take the better : 
Mix it with lake 

Of Wener and of Wetter. 

Dip a spoonful out — 

Mind you don't get groggy- 
Pour it in the lake 

Winnipissiogee. 

Stir the mixture well, 

Lest it prove inferior, 
Then put half a drop 

Into Lake Superior. 

Every other day, 

Take a drop in water ; 
You'll be better, soon ; 

Or, at least, you ought to. 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 4l 

The Bucket that Hung in the Well. 

How dear to my heart are the days of my childhood 7 

When fond recollection presents to my view, 

The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild wood, 

And every loved spot which my infancy knew ; 

The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood near it ; 

The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell ; 

The, cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it, 

And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the well — 

The old oaken bucket, 

The iron bound bucket, 
The moss covered bucket that hung in the well. 

That moss covered bucket, I hail as a treasure ; 
For often at noon, when returned from the field, 
I found it a source of an exquisite pleasure, 
The purest and sweetest that nature could yield. 
How ardent I seized, with hands that were glowing, 
And quick to the white pebbled bottom it fell ; 
Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing, 
And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well, 

The old oaken bucket, 

The iron bound bucket, 
The moss covered bucket, that rose from the well. 

How sweet from the green mossy rim to receive it, 

As pois'd on the curb it inclined to my lips ; 

Not a full flowing goblet could tempt me to leave it, 

Tho' fill'd with the nectar that Jupiter sips. 

And now, far removed from that situation, 

The tear of regret will intrusively swell, 

As fancy reverts to my father's plantation, 

And sighs for the bucket that hung in the well, 

The old oaken bucket, 

The iron bound bucket, 
The moss covered bucket that hung in the well. 

— Wood worth. 



42 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

Signing the Pledge. 



There are many who say, we approve of your object and are 
willing to aid it, but why all this ceremony of a written pledge ? I 
am my own keeper. I can take care of myself. So once argued 
thousands whom subsequent intemperance brought to an early 
grave. Others cavil against the measure by crying, you are en- 
snaring our conscience. I like your plan and approve your princi- 
ples, but I never will subscribe to any written pledge. Sir, when 
the fathers of the Revolution resolved to deliver themselves and 
their posterity from a political bondage, not to be named the same 
day with that of this Moloch which has enslaved our country ; 
when they united to contend against the political usurpations of 
an infatuated mother country, what did they do ? There was no 
fear of written pledges then. They came forward before God and 
man, and pledged to one another their lives, their fortunes, and 
their sacred honor. Sir, they wrote out the pledge, and subscrib- 
ed it with their names, and who of all their descendants does not 
feel a thrill of grateful emotions pass through his bosom as his eye 
rests upon their honored names. Yet there are some who shrink 
from a pledge that calls, not for life, for fortune, or the offering up 
of sacred honor, but only for abstinence from an evil which has 
well-nigh converted our country into an Aceldama, Sir, we know 
the evil to which men are exposed. But this pledge shuts the 
door. It puts an end to solicitation. It takes our youth not only 
from the broad doorway that leads to open ruin, but from every 
insidious by-path to destruction. — Hon. Th Frelinghuysen. 



The Terrible Whispering Gallery. 



Could all the forms of evil produced in the land by intemperance 
come upon us in one horrid array, it would appal the nation, and 
put an end to the traffic in ardent spirits. If in every dwelling 
built by blood, the stone from the wall should utter all the follies 
which the bloody traffic extorts, and the beam out of the timber 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 43 

should echo them back, who would build such a house ? and who 
would dwell in it ? What if, in every part of the dwelling, from 
the cellar upward, through all the halls and chambers, babblings, 
and contentions, and voices, and groans, and shrieks, and wailings 
were heard, day and night ? What if the cold blood oozed out, 
and stood in drops upon the walls, and, by preternatural art, all 
the ghastly skulls and bones of the victims destroyed by intempe- 
rance, should stand upon the walls, in horrid sculpture, within and 
without the building, who would rear such a building ? What 
if. at eventide, and at midnight the airy forms of men destroyed 
by intemperance were dimly seen haunting the distilleries and 
stores, where they received their bane— following the track of the 
ship engaged in the commerce— walking upon the waves — flitting 
athwart the deck — sitting upon the rigging, and sending up from 
the hold within, and from the waves without, groans, and loud 
laments, and wailings ! Who would attend such stores ? Who 
would labor in such distilleries ? Who would navigate such ships ? 
Oh ! were the sky over our heads one great whispering gallery, 
bringing down about us all the lamentation and woe which intem- 
perance creates ; and the firm earth one sonorous medium of sound, 
bringing up around us, from beneath, the wailings of the damned, 
whom the commerce in ardent spirits had sent thither ; these tre- 
mendous realities, assailing our sense, would invigorate our con- 
science, and give decision to our purpose. — Dr. Lyman Beecher. 



Defining Positions. 



Mr. President : 

We want men to define their positions. The temperance cause 
is a righteous one, and one that demands the serious attention of 
the community— one that will tell well by and by, when men will 
look back with wonder and scorn upon days gone by. Already is 
the selling of intoxicating liquors held in scorn ; it is done behind 
the fence ; they dare not attempt to deny our position ; we bring 
up to our support the evil which the drunkards undergo, and they 



44 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

cannot deny it. We want the drinking men to see their positions ; 
we want them to see their ridiculous positions ; we want them to 
see that they have been a laughing stock in the community. Think, 
young men, what a mighty influence you can exert! We want your 
energy ; we want your powers of mind in aid of the temperance 
cause. When we look over the breadth and length of the land, the 
heart sickens at so much apathy ; everything seems to be dull and 
cold ; no more animation than in the scene pictured in a fairy tale, 
in which everything was turned into stone. There stood the war- 
horse, pale and cold, his nostrils frozen ; and the warrior, cold and 
lifeless, stood by, leaning with his hand on the horse— all was still 
— dead ! But at last the blast of the war-trumpet sounded, the 
warrior leaped in the saddle, and grasping the reins with one hand, 
and drawing his sword with the other, with one shout he rode on 
to victory. Now, young men, the blast of the temperance trumpet 
sounds, and we want you to rouse all over the land, and spring 
forward to victory. — /. B. Gough. 



Dialogue for the Fourth of July. 

BETWEEN CHARLES, WILLIAM AND JONATHAN. 

Charles.— (Solus.) 

" On the cradle of Freedom thick darkness still hovered ; 
No star shed its light across the deep gloom ; 
The true hearts who guarded that treasure, discovered 
No gleam in the prospect, no hope but the tomb ; 
When a meteor burst forth on the world's raptured eyes, 
With a brightness whose like may be viewed again never, 
And a flag was unfurled to the deep glowing skies, 
Bearing proudly aloft, ' Independence for ever !' " 

(Ente?' William and Jonathan.) 
Jonathan, — Why, friend Charles, you are quite poetical to-day. 
Charles. — Well, who can be otherwise ? It is the glorious day 
of our National Independence. Shame on the man who does not 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER, 45 

wake up to his country's glory ! I am very glad that you have 
changed your minds, and I have agreed to devote this day to 
the remembrance of those heroic deeds which our Fathers accom- 
plished. 

William. — I know they were ncble men ; but I cannot enter, 
with all your enthusiasm, into their praises. I think, although it 
has turned out well, it was a dangerous precedent which they set 
mankind. If they were right, I see not why every discontented 
subject is not right in renouncing allegiance to his government; and 
every child to his parent. If they had submitted peaceably to the 
exactions of King George, his government might soon have been 
more lenient, and they would have saved all that spilling of blood, 
What is your opinion, Jonathan ? 

Jonathan. — My opinion ? Why, you know I am a tetotaler to 
the back-bone. I am never for mincing matters with tyrants. ! 
how I should like to have been with the Bostonians, who threw 
over the tea. I would, have made young hyson and old hyson, 
pouchong and souchong, fly ; just as father made the whisky run 
when he knocked in the head of the old whisky barrel. 

William. — Jonathan, you are one of those mad ultraists who 
act without reason, and would soon, if they had their own way, 
uproot all law and order. I am for obedience to rightful authority. 

Chakles,— But what, William, is rightful authority? That's 
the question. Now, I say that King George had no right to op- 
press ctiv fathers. His oppression was all usurpation. 

Jonathan. — Just like the oppression of King Alcohol. He uses 
many soft words, and pretends to be the friend of our nation, but 
what does he do but suck out our blood and cut our heart-strings j 
his kingdom is a kingdom of flattery and cruelty, and therefore re- 
bellion is justifiable. Have you not signed the pledge, William ? 

William. — To be sure I have, and glory in it. 

Jonathan. — But why did you sign, unless because you could 
not and would not any longer be subject to the vile dominion of 
Alcohol ? The pledge is our second declaration cf Independence, 
and I am going to get as many boys and girls to sign it to-day as 
I can. 

Charles. — I rejoice to hear you say it. I will be your com- 



46 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

panion. I think the temperance reformation equal to the great 
work our fathers accomplished. And sure I am that, without 
temperance, independence is hardly worth having. So here are 
three cheers for Temperance and Independence. Hurrah ! Hur- 
rah ! Hurrah 1 



Our Flag. 



"NO LICENSE. " 

With a firm hand and a trusting heart, we long since nailed our 
flag to the mast, and, as it gracefully unrolled to the breeze, our 
eyes flashed with pride, and our bosom swelled with exultation and 
hope. We love to look upon it now. Beneath its broad and ample 
folds, firmly relying upon the justice of our cause, and trusting in 
God, we will continue to do battle. 

In other days, we struggled for triumph in that political party of 
which we were proud to be called a member. Our struggle was 
not without success. We labored honestly for our country 
then — we strike for our country now ; for its honor and its peace — 
its highest weal ; for the purity of the elective franchise 
and the perpetuity of our institutions and laws ; for public and pri- 
vate virtue, and the rescue of domestic happiness from its deadliest 
foe ; to wrench the rankling shaft from the torn, bleeding heart 
of the wife, sister, daughter, mother ; — to roll back the tide of 
ruin — the lava of Death which, bursting from ten thousand hissing 
craters, rushes on to blacken and destroy ; to rob the Poor House 
of its wretched tribute, the Prison of its felon inmate, and the gal- 
lows of its victim ; to guard the social and the fire-side circle from 
the ravages of a stalking pestilence which knows no mercy ; to save 
Religion from its robberies, manhood from its blight, and the 
works of God from its desecrations ; to shield and to save the altar 
and the hearth-stone from its ruthless tread ; Worth, Wealth, 
Genius, and Beauty from its withering grasp, and Man from a dis- 
honored grave — we strike for ALL that we love, and we strike 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 4t 

against avarice, robbery, crime, and blood— and we strike for the 
character, the dignity, and the happiness of MAN ! We have 
hung our " banner upon the outer wall." The pulse quickens in 
view of the mighty interests at stake, and we would that our voice 
could reach every faint hearted friend of the cause, and arouse him 
to action. Let us spurn with contempt the very suggestion of a 
retreat— Let us " Never Surrender," but stand by our flag both 
now and hereafter. — S. C. Adv. 



The Rumseller. 



BY J. H. W. HAWKINS. 



The Rumseller is a murderer. He is a murderer when he causes 
the death of the inebriate by premature decay and disease. He is 
a murderer when he causes the drunkard to lay violent hands 
upon himself, through anguish and remorse for his intemperance. 
He is a murderer, when he causes his victim to go away from his 
shop to perish in the cold, or to die by accident from fire or water. 
He is a murderer, when he causes the death of the drunkard's 
broken hearted wife, who, after years of abuse and mental anguish, 
such as none but God and the poor sufferer can know, falls into a 
premature grave. And above all, as a climax of his appalling 
guilt, he is a murderer, by causing the hopeless destruction of the 
soul of his victim. "No drunkard shall enter the kingdom of 
heaven." Not satisfied with blighting all that is dear in human 
hopes — not satisfied with peopling the grave with its countless 
victims— he would glut hell with the souls he has slain. 
" Of you, ye rumseller, will heaven require 

An account of your traffic in this liquid fire, 

By you is the arm of the murderer nerved ; 

By you is the public with robbers well served ; 

By you is the razor of suicide guided ; 

By you is our holy religion derided." 



48 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

Parody 

«POKEN BY A SMART YOUNG FELLOW, AT SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS. 



You'd scarce expect one of my age 
To plead for temperance on the stage ; 
And should I chance to fall below 
Portraying all the drunkard's woe, 
Don't view me with a critic's eye, 
Nor pass my simple story by. 

Large streams from little fountains flow. 
Great sots from moderate drinkers grow ; 
And though I now am small and young, 
No rum shall ever touch my tongue. 

Let all the boys and girls, like me, 
From liquor, pledge that they'll be free ; 
And then will not Columbia' 3 soil 
Surpass, by far, the Emerald Isle ? 
Yes ! Ireland then will be outdone, 
Or any land beneath the sun. 

Mayn't Massachusetts boast as great 

As any other sister State ? 

And where's the town, go far and near, 

That sells the rum as we do here ? 

Or where's the boy, but three feet high. 

That hates the traffic worse than I ? 

These thoughts inspire my youthful mind, 
To banish grog-shops from mankind ; 
The shops that stain our land with blood, 
By pouring forth a poisonous flood, 
Yet claim to be a public good ! 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 49 

The Doings of Alcohol. 

On whatsoever hearthstone my foot shall be planted, the glad- 
some fire shall go out, to be lighted no more forever \ and the roof- 
tree shall fall, and the voices of children be hushed, and all that 
men cluster around them, to make their earthly homes so much 
like heaven, shall vanish like a wreath of smoke, and desolation 
brood over the ruins. I will point the son's knife against the 
father's throat, and his gray hairs shall drip with gore. Where 
war and vengeance are, I will rouse their fury to ten-fold rage, 
and blot from the soldier's breast the last vestige of humanity. 
The incendiary's torch shall be my banner ; the crackling flames of 
burning villages, and the shriek of murdered innocence, the music 
of my march ! 

Pestilence shall follow me as a shadow ; and I will open unto 
him the gates of a million dwellings which else had been secure. I 
will spread famine and disease even in lands of plenty and health 
and will seal up the eyes of all my victims, so that they shall not 
see nor know that their next plunge is into perdition. I will sweep 
whole continents of their inhabitants ; and give woes and sorrows 
and " wounds without cause " to the whole race of man. Yet, who- 
soever is wounded by me, shall seek me as hid treasures to be 
wounded yet again. I will bind upon their brows the iron crown 
of suffering, burning with hell-fire, that shall scorch, and sear, and 
eat into their brain and heart and soul, yet shall they fall down and 
worship me, and, for my sake, part with houses and lands, and wife 
and children, and hope, and heaven. 

Let Jehovah send forth spirits, pure as the snow-flake, to dwell 
in earthly bodies ; I will seek them out, and kindle in their hearts 
an unquenchable fire that shall consume them ; and the cherubim 
shall watch long for their Father in Heaven. The student at his 
books, the mechanic at his toils, the laborer at the plow, will I de- 
stroy, and none shall stay me. I will coil myself in the brain of 
the sea-captain, and seal up his eyes, and so distort them that he 
shall know neither chart nor compass, and his vessel and all on 
board shall be engulfed, and the bones of the mariners whiten the 
5 



50 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

bottom of the ocean. I will be the omnipresent curse of humanity ; 
and under my guidance the race shall walk forever as in the 
shadow of an eclipse. Eyes they have, but shall not see ; ears they 
have, but shall not hear the ends and the purport of the crooked 
paths through which I will lead them. 

I will take the sons of Ihe kings and the mighty men, and the 
captains, and the great ones of earth, and will mangle them with 
horrid wounds, strip them of wealth, reputation, life itself, and fill 
their last hour with torment. Around their dying couches I will 
send serpent forms, unfolding coil after coil from out the darkness, 
brandishing their forked tongues to sting them, and lick their blood 
as a fierce flame licks up its fuel. Thoughts shall become things, 
living things, to mock and curse them. And some, in their agony, 
shall leap into this burning lake, in hopes to escape still greater tor- 
ture ; and some will I hold upon the brink, and rejoice when I see 
every nerve shrinking with agony, as I open to their startled gaze 
the horrors of that pit in which I plunge them forever ! 

Yet this is not all. I know that you will laugh, (if fiends can 
laugh,) when I tell you that I will so manage that mankind shall 
all along think me their friend ! Though it is my mission to torture 
and destroy the whole race of Adam, yet so will I mix with their 
business, their pleasures, and their daily habits ; so flatter and de- 
lude their stupid senses, that they shall pronounce ma a "good 
creature," nay a " creature of God !" At the wedding feasts I will 
be a source of joy ; and at the funeral gathering, the solace of their 
sorrow. The rank grass shall grow over those slain by my hand, 
the mourners shall forget it, and fall in their turn. The father 
shall commend me to the son ; and, reeling to his grave, shall leave 
him as an inheritance, a fondness for me ; and the son shall follow 
in the footsteps of his father, down to perdition. Physicians shall 
invoke my aid in sickness : and in all circles I will plant myself se- 
curely, and make myself a companion and a familiar, and men shall 
never be so merry as in the presence of their deadliest foe. 

Postry shall lend me her rose-garland, and music her charm ; 
and the spirit of melody shall speak from the myriad harps to sound 
my praises, and witch the world with the idle dream that I am the 
inspirer of mirth and the soul of happiness and all good fellowship . 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 51 

and if there be one -of all that glorious race, for whom yon planets, 
from their golden urns pour down their silent, everlasting cataract 
of light, who excels his fellows, I will allure him with songs and 
visions of beauty, and strew his path with rose-leaves, till at last 
he shall walk heedless into my coils. And, once my slave, though 
a thousand should weave their heart-strings around him, and weep 
tears of blood, he shall, in all his pride and beauty, sink deeper and 
deeper ; and in tribulation and anguish unutterable, dig his own 
pathway down to hell. — Richmond Despatch. 



Prohibitory Law. 



Ladies and Gentlemen — We are on the verge of a new era, and we 
look forward to the future with hope as we meet the responsibilities 
which devolve upon us. It will be to us fraught with unspeakable 
blessings or with mischiefs, great beyond the power of conception. 
Hitherto we have had the educational influence of law against the 
cause of righteousness, and in favor of influences which degrade, and 
ruin, and blight, and curse our humanity. The consequence has been 
that what we have attempted to do by our ethical reasonings, by 
what is termed moral suasion, we have practically undone through 
the educational influence of our statutory enactments ; and thus the 
whole series of temperance efforts, from its inception down to thi3 
hour, has been little more than the repetition of the fable of 
Sisyphus : 

" With many a weary step and many a groan, 
Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone. 
The large round stone recoiling with a bound, 
Thunders impetuous down and smokes along the ground." 

We have become tired of this fruitless and more than fruitless toil 
and when we have inquired with anxiety into the cause of our fail- 
ure, when our cause has been illustrated and defended by the chief- 
eat intellects of the land, we yet find our efforts comparatively 



52 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

fruitless, and the answer comes from every thoughtful and reflective 
mind— the cause of your failure is in the educational influence of 
the law. No educational influence in this country is more potent 
than that of law ; it goes where the influences of the pulpit 
do not reach. It is sometimes asked whether we have the right 
to pass a Prohibitory Law. We think we have, else we should not 
have petitioned our legislative body for a Prohibitory Law ; and 
in the second place, I reply, that I cannot conceive of a'human gov- 
ernment divested of this right, the right to protect its citizens. 
The people have the right of self-protection. I would remind our 
opponents, and I do it in all kindness, for I wish this battle to be 
as far a3 possible a battle of opinion, and not of hard words, I 
would remind them that the people of this State have a Western 
New-York as well as a New-York City. If the Atlantic flings its 
thunder -psalm cheeringly upon your shores, away out yonder you 
can hear the perpetual anthem of a Niagara, speaking like the voice 
of God ! The people who live within the sound of its solemn 
thunder will have a voice in that matter as well as those who re- 
side within the limits of your own great and in some repects 
glorious city. I repeat, then, that the people are in earnest in this 
matter. Now, suppose that the Courts should adjudicate the law 
to be unconstitutional. Such an adjudication does not make it 
unconstitutional. Suppose there should be some constitutional 
flaw in the law. We remember that one of our revolutionary wor- 
thies, when his platoon missed fire, said, " Boys, pick your flints 
and try again." That is precisely what we mean to do. Consti- 
tutions ! — a breath has mad© them, and a breath can unmake them ! 
Constitutions ! — I bow down in worship to no piece of parchment. 
A Constitution is sacred in my eyes only as it embodies everlast- 
ing right. Let the moles who burrow amid the dust of antiquity, 
who have no idea of human progression, who would be startled if 
they should be visited with an original thought — who, had they 
lived in the days of the Revolution, would have pronounced Pat- 
rick Henry a traitor, and braided halters for a Washington— let 
such men hiss if they will. For my part, I believe that Humani- 
ty is above Constitutions, and that God is above us all. And 
when I say this, I advocate no violation of Constitutions. I simply 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 53 

mean to affirm that what the people have made defectively, they 
can re-model and amend, and if our fathers have bungled in this 
matter — and I do not say that they have — but those who declare 
that they left us powerless to turn back this swelling tide of death 
that oversweeps the land, bearing away all that is fair and lovely 
and of good repute among them ; they are the ones who libel the 
framers of the Constitution ; if, I say, our fathers so bungled their 
work as to defeat the s very object for which governments were 
established and Constitutions ordained, let their sons amend their 
error ; let us show to the world that we are capable of government, 
that we do not worship a mere piece of parchment because our 
fathers made it ; but reverence it only as a revelation of the truth 
found there, and God help us, we will eradicate and bring the whole 
instrument into harmony with everlasting law. I tell you we have 
our hands on the throat of this devil, Alcohol ; and God helping us, 
we we will throttle him ! But it is objected, that the law will be re- 
sisted, especially in New- York. I should wonder if it was not. 
During my brief residence here, I have observed no law of either 
God or man that has not been resisted. It is not a new thing for 
laws to be disobeyed, resisted, violated, in New- York. Why, dur- 
ing the past year your murders have averaged one a week. That is 
a matter of record ; and nine-tenths of those murders were tracea- 
ble directly to the grog-shops. It is these ministers of evil scatter- 
ed thickly over the city, which stare upon you from all your popu- 
lous streets ; from all your pestilential hells ; from the very Gehennas 
of the Five Points, as well as from the gin-palaces of Broadway- 
it is these ministers of evil that have sent forth the incendiary with 
his torch, and the assassin with his gleaming knife, which have 
maddened the brain of the husband until, in his infuriated demon- 
ism, he has trampled out the life of the wife whom he has vowed to 
cherish. These are the fruits which grow on this fatal tree, where 
ever its branches have been flung out over the land. 

— -Wm. H.Burleigh. 



54 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

The Army of Cadets. 



Thomas.— Jim, what's all this fuss about the Army of Cadets? 

Jim, — We are going to fight Old King Alcohol, and his two 
great armies. 

T. — Fight, heigh ! I guess you'll fight smart. You hain't got 
no guns, and you'll run like a flock of sheep if only old Tiger was 
set on you. 

J. — We don't want any guns for this war. Old Alcohol is like 
a swarm of bees. He won't hurt us if we let him alone, and that's 
what we form into armies for. We don't want any guns but 
Cold Water Engines, 

T. — If he is like a swarm of bees, I guess you'll want something 
more than Cold Water to keep him off with. Cousin Tim got 
stung by the bees, and he was as mad as a hornet, and said he'd 
give it to 'em ; so he went and got uncle's old rusty sword, and run 
it through the hive, and said, " There, take that !" This riled the 
whole swarm, and they come about his head, and stung him 'most 
to death. 

J. — But we are not going to fight in that way. If Timothy had 
let the bees alone, they would not have stung him. Old King Al- 
cohol has as many stings as a swarm of bees ; but he won't hurt 
us if we let him alone. 

T. — But what of his armies? How are you going to take 
them? 

J. — The old fellow has two armies, one made up of wholesalers, 
and the other of retailers ; and if we can take them, we shall not 
only keep out of the wars ourselves, but fix him so he can't kill 
any more men and women, nor make any more madmen, to beat 
and bruise their wives and children, and starve them to death. 

T. — But how are you going to do it, Jim ? I guess you'll have 
your match. 

J. — I'll tell you how we'll do it, Thomas. We'll take them by 
seige. When an army wants to take a walled town, they'll watch 
all the gates, and let no one go in to carry the people food ; and 
they dam up and turn away all the streams of water that go into the 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 55 

city ; and in that way they starve 'em out. The wholesalers and 
retailers have both great armies, and their forts are walled round 
so high that we can't get at them. But we'll starve 'em out. We 
won't buy of them, and we will do all we can to keep others from 
buying; and by-and-by they will lay down their arms, and go 
about some honest and decent business. They are already fast 
deserting the ranks of the Old King. His ranks are thin- 
ning out every day ; and very soon the old tyrant will be left all 
alone, and then he may enjoy himself as well as he can, for he can 
do nobody any harm. We won't kill him, — we will only serve 
as the Quaker did his dog — " I'll not hurt, thee, but I'll give thee a 
bad name," and so cried after him, " mad dog I mad dog /" 

T. — Well, if people would think how many are made mad by 
drinking rum, they would keep from the grog-shop as they would 
from a mad dog. 



The Tides are Rising. 



It is somewhere recorded of a certain traveller, who was making 
a journey on the sea-coast, that owing to the beauty of the scenery 
he was induced to take the road along the tide-washed sands as 
most agreeable. This road was safe only at low tide, and l?y 
along the beach between the sea and the lowering and precipitous 
cliffs bounding the coast. Pleased with the romance of the sea on 
one hand and the cloud-capped cliffs on the other, he loitered along 
the path, regardless of the encroaching waves that washed the sand 
nearer and nearer his feet. A man on the cliffs above seeing his 
perilous condition, called to him and warned him of his danger. 
" If you pass this point," cried this friend, " you lose your last 
chance of escape. Look ! the tides are rising ! They have now cov- 
ered the road behind you, and they roll nearer and nearer the cliffs 
before you ; by this ascent only can you escape." The traveller dis- 
regarded these kind admonitions. He felt strong and confident he 
could gain the turn in the coast before the tide cut off his progress, 
and he hastened ou. He soon discovered his danger. The sea 
boiled angrily before him. He turned to retrace his steps, but he 



56 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER 

was terrified to see the tide rolling across the path in the rear. He 
looked up at the precipitous cliffs, but they were inaccessible. The 
tides rolled at his feet. He ran for the highest ground, but the 
swelling waves drove him from this. With much effort he gained a 
projecting rock, but the waves scorned his retreat ; they rose higher 
and higher ; they dashed the foaming surf around his feet — they rose 
to his breast — to his neck — his nostrils snuffed their sickening 
stench — he screamed in despair for aid, but none came. The sea 
closed over him, and the night of death was suddenly upon him. 

An incident like this conveys a goodly moral. Thousands and tens 
of thousands are to day loitering along the coast path of moderate 
drinking, regardless of the danger besetting their path. If a warn- 
ing cry is uttered from some of the stand-points above, they treat 
them with scorn and derision, and push madly onward, sneering and 
scoffing at those who feel it their duty to cry to them to fly for 
their lives. 

The path of him who indulges in the use of intoxicating drinks, 
is more dangerous than any rock-girt path along old Ocean's coast ; 
perilous with dangers more terrible than the dangers of the sea, 
Habit and appetite close up the rear and cut off retreat, and 
waves, like waves of fire, roll nearer and nearer to the path ahead ; 
Unless the hapless man summons his energies in season and flies to 
some of the sure arks of safety, he will most assuredly be suddenly 
cut off. Oh ! moderate drinker, look around you — behold your 
danger — fly for your life — now — now ; to-morrow may be too late ! 
Fly ! fly! fly! The tides are rising! ! 



Carnage of the Traffic* 

Were a spirit to have lit upon our earth the morning after the 
battle of Waterloo, and seen the ten 'thousand mangled corpses 
there ; the decapitated bodies, the scattered limbs, the dead horses 
piled in heaps, the horrid maniacs rushing to and fro in terrific tor- 
ture; the dying, seeking for death and not finding it, and crying for 
a drop of water to cool their burning lips, surely he would have 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 5t 

asked what demon from the lowest pit had d me this horrid work. 
And when learning it was war, he would have said, " Let the na- 
tions in all coming time, combine ajainst it, and never more suffer 
it to visit this terrestrial ball." 

But could he now view, gathered on one vast field, all the car- 
nage of Alcohol in a single year ; the mangled corpses, the broken 
hearts, the brawls, the fights, the cruelties to wives and children, 
the suicides, the murders and manslaughters, the terrifie casualties 
on land and sea, the smashed cars and wrecked ships, the wide- 
spread conflagrations, pauperism in its rags, and hunger gnawing 
the flesh for life ; maniacs, with delirium tremens, rushing hither 
and thither in wild dismay to escape from devils d amned ; idiots 
by thousands, with lolling tongues and unmeaning motions ; a hus- 
band here dragging his wife by the hair of her head, and a father 
there dashing out the brains of his child on the wall ; a grocer kick- 
ing the weeping wife of the drunkard from his store, and a drunken 
woman on fire ; a young woman, destroyed by the drink, jumping 
from a bridge into a cold death stream, and a young man, fortune 
gone, applying a pistol to his head ; an aged drunkard, stepping into 
the pit, cursing God and damning his own soul ; murderers swinging 
from a thousand gallows ; prostitution and rapine holding hell's 
revelry, and atheism and blasphemy, in scorn and hate, and malice, 
and revenge, torturing their victims with remorse and despair ; 
and should he be told that the great agent of all this evil was licen- 
sed by law, and had been for an hundred years ; that judges, and 
jurors, and law-makers, and governors were its friends, and opposed 
all prohibition ; that it shielded itself behind the most solemn Con- 
stitutions, and plead the right to move on in its work of death, though 
with crocodile tears it lamented the follies and results of excess ; 
that even ministers and churches upheld its power, and woman in- 
troduced it to her nursery and her circles of gaiety and joy, and the 
young and the old alike worshipped at its altars — what would he 
think of this one spirit of evil compared with war, or famine, or 
pestilence ? What of the people who would uphold and legalize it ? 
and what would he exclaim, but, curse of curses ! 0, thou traffic, 
dyed in venom of hell ! ye people, torn, and scathed, and pealed, 

when will ye be wise ? 

— Rev. J. Marsh. 



58 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 



Arm for the Battle. 



Death ! death ! to the crested serpent ! 

War ! war ! on the curse of Rum ! 
From mountain to valley the watchword, 

Kepeat it till our lips are dumb. 
Follow the trail of the monster — 

Trail him to forest and glen, 
Hunt him wherever he hideth — 

Stab him to death in his den ! 

Hath he not murdered our mothers — 

Brought their gray locks to the tomb ? 
Hath he not murdered our brothers, 

Yet in their manhood's bloom ? 
Hath he not coiled on our hearthstones, 

Hissing with Upas breath ? 
On ! on, to the warfare, brothers ! 

Nor cease till he writhes in death ! 



Arm ! arm for the battle of glory I 

Strike ! strike for the battle of Truth, 
Fathers, with locks so hoary, 

Sons in the bloom of youth ! 
Mothers, and sisters, and daughters, 

With your prayers and blessings come ! 
Death ! death ! wherever he lurketh, 

To the serpent whose name is Rum ! 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 59 

The Woman in the Rail Car. 



" Would to God that the Maine Law could have passed fifty 
years ago ! " We turned to find an old lady on a seat back of us, 
venturing her wish in the midst of an earnest discussion between 
a Maine law Yankee and a red-nosed member of the bottle frater- 
nity. " Yes," continued the old lady, " fifty years ago. A husband 
would not then have gone down to a drunkard's grave, my 
daughters married drunkards and lived lives of sorrow, or my boys 
have died in jail or the mad-house. Look at me," and with some- 
thing of fire kindling up in her old eyes, she laid her bony hand 
upon the arm of the liquor dealer, " and see a wreck of your 
accursed business. I was young, had enough of this world's goods, 
and my heart was full of happiness and hope. My God ! Sir, how 
they have poured desolation into this old heart. I am often bitter, 
and do you w onder ? Such as you robbed me of all my children, 
and at eighty years of age, I am alone — do you hear — alone ! And 
let me tell you, this hand never wronged the least of God's crea- 
tures. But you wronged me. You, Sir, talk about the domicil, 
and say it is sacred ! Gcd forgive me, but I remember when my 
home was entered by the constables and skinned of all. I remem- 
ber when the Bible my mother gave me was taken away for drink. 
I remember the tim e when my first-born was laid in my arms from 
a drunken husband's hands, and its little life blood ran warm into 
my bosom from its wounds. Why, Sir," and the old woman half 
raised in her seat, " in God's holy name, did you come into my 
house to rob and kill? Was that constitutional? I have one 
child living — in the asylum — a maniac. It's all the work of your 
hands. There is blood there ! Blood, Sir ! Better, Sir, have a 
mill stone around your neck than to sell rum. The curse of the 
widow is upon you. It will follow you. The serpents you send 
out will all return to you and yours. Give me that bottle!" Invol' 
untarily, as it almost seemed, the liquor dealer handed the old lady 
the bottle which he held in his hand. She dashed it out of the car 
window, and slowly resumed her seat The people who had 



60 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

crowded around while the train was stopping, to hear the conver- 
sation, slowly and thoughtfully dispersed to their seats, and the 
liquor-dealer looked the very embodiment of humiliation and 
shame. With a deep sigh we turned away, our own faith made 
stronger by the Maine Law sermon we had listened to. Ah ! how 
many in our land would have escaped the bitterness of life, had rum 
been banished in their day!— Cayuga Chief. 



Rights of Property. 

Intoxicating liquors put on sale for a drink are either property, 
or not property. They are either property, or, as our Maine Law 
called them, a nuisance. If they are property, then, beyond all 
controversy, all persons have the right, and an equal right, to sell 
them. If, on the other hand, they are a nuisance, then in whose- 
ever's hands they may be, nothing remains but to abate the 
nuisance. That Courts do not act upon these principles is only 
because Courts are more addicted to follow precedent than common 
sense. Why should they not boldly protect every man in selling 
intoxicating drinks ? It is a shame that they should skulk behind 
a statute. They know that the right to sell is one of the incidents 
of property ; and that, wherever the right of property is uncon- 
ditional and perfect, this incident is inseparable from it. Hence 
they know that the legislation which denies this incident is void r 
as utterly void as would be the legislation which denies property. 
Every person who believes that the rights of property attach to 
intoxicating liquors under all circumstances, must, to be consis- 
tent, be opposed to this new statute. Of course I can consistently 
approve it, so far as it denies the right to sell such liquors as a 
beverage — because I hold that all rights of property in them 
cease as soon as they are offered for sale as a beverage. That 
moment they become a nuisance. Before this perversion, they were 
as sacred as any other kind of property. Valuable uses they 
might have been put to. But now, not one good, however small, 
is to come frcm them. Nothing now but woes innumerable, deep, 



TEE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 61 

matchless. The pistol, whilst in my pocket, is property ; but the 
moment I take it in my hand, and give it a murderous aim, all 
property in it is lost, and you or any other bystander can wrest it 
from me and destroy it with impunity. The day will come when 
the public sentiment will accord as full liberty to destroy the intox- 
icating liquors, which are transformed into the deadliest of nui~ 
sances. I add here, that the day is just at hand when the courts 
will feel compelled to say that intoxicating liquors, when offered for 
sale for a drink are still property, and may, therefore, be sold by 
all ; or are not property, but a nuisance, and may therefore be sold 
by none. There can be no permanent middle ground. The sale of 
intoxicating drinks must be free, either in all hands or none. Both 
rich and poor must be forbidden to sell them, or both must be 
allowed to sell them. What a shameful violation of equal justice 
to deny the right to a poor man, and accord it to his neighbor be- 
cause he has money to pay for it ! 

Oh that the friends of temperance were faithful to their cause ! 
How soon then it would be crowned with triumph ! But, alas, 
it is well nigh vain to try to serve this dear causa, so long as its 
friends continue to betray it at the polls ! If they would only 
resolve, and abide by their resolution, to give their votes to no 
men who recognize the rights of property in intoxicating liquors, 
put on sale for a drink, then would a few years witness the exten- 
sive redemption of our land from the curse of drunkenness. But 
so long as they shall continue to know as law, sacred obligatory 
law, the infernal statutes, or the infernal parts of the statutes, 
which authorize the heart-breaking and murderous uses of intoxi- 
cating liquors, so long will they continue to dignify the dram-shop, 
make the frequenting of it respectable, and drunkenness excusable. 
— Hon. Gerrit Smith. 



The Band of Hope. 



A DIALOGUE BETWEEN JAMES WILSON AND WILLIAM TURNBULL. 



/. W. Good morning, friend Turnbull. I saw you was in our 
Band of Hope last evening. I hope you was pleased with our 
institution. 



i 



62 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

W. T. Yes, friend James, I was pleased with it as a whole. 
I was attracted to it by the name. As I was passing down the 
street, I saw the sign, Meeting of the Band op Hope, and, as my 
heart is full of hope I thought I would step in and see what new 
impulses for good I might get. But whence did you derive your 
name, and what is your specific object ? 

J. W. Our name is of English origin. According to a common 
saying, " The young are the hope of our country," the youth who 
there combined to save the country from the deluge of intemper- 
ance, were called Bands of Hope. There is hope that, by this 
combination, they will themselves be saved from intemperance, and 
save, too, the nation. 

W. T. A good object, James, and a phrase well applied. But 
what are your means ? I should like to be admitted into your 
secret. 

/. W. We have no secret, friend Turnbull. Our principle is 
the most simple one in the world, viz., that if you only let the 
drunkard's drink alone, you can never be a drunkard. 

W. T. Well that is very true ; but a truism so simple as to 
amount to an absurdity ; you may as well say, that if a man never 
opens his mouth, he will never tell a lie ; or if he never eats, he will 
not be poisoned. But your principle does not stand alone. There 
is another as true as that, viz. : If you continue always a moderate 
drinker, you can never be a drunkard ; so that my principle is as 
good as yours. 

/. TV. I deny that, friend Turnbull, for, on our principle, he 
never can be a drunkard, while on yours, he may be. All drunkards 
were once moderate drinkers. But if they never had been moder- 
ate drinkers, they never would have been drunkards. 

W. T. That is true ; but it does not affect my position at all. 
If two gentlemen go through life together, one a teto taller and 
the other a moderate drinker, and neither ever become drunkards, 
is not the course of one just as good as that of the other ? I say 
the course of the moderate drinker is the best of the two ; for it 
is equally safe, while it has more enjoyment. 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 63 

/. W. I dispute you there, in both your positions. It is not 
equally safe, because in the course of the moderate drinker there is 
a chance of his becoming a drunkard ; while in that of the teto- 
taller, there is none at all. Suppose the Suspension Bridge had 
been above the Niagara Falls instead of below ; would it have been 
as safe to go across in a boat as on the bridge, when in the latter 
case, none are lost, but in the former fifty a year. 

W. T. But it is as safe to those who get across. 

J". W. I grant it. But is it as safe in itself? You know it is 
not. And as to the superior pleasure of a moderate drinker's 
course. I deny that altogether. I have tried that, though many 
winters have not gone over my head. I would not be so much 
harrassed and tormented, and debased by your so-called moder- 
ate drinking, as I once was, for all you could offer me. I know all 
about it, and I suspect you do also. Tormenting thirst, and sub- 
sequent headache, sleepless nights, and a fear that I had drank too 
much, and should one clay be exposed! I want none of this 
pleasure. Now I can stand up and feel like a man. Besides, I 
know that my example is good, and I know that I shall never be 
tempted to my hurt, and there is something jingling in my pocket 
which makes me smile, while you throw it away for that which 
does you no good. We are a Band of Hope — you, alas ! belong to 
the band of Despair — despair of ever clearing the country of in- 
temperance while all the boys are moderate drinkers. If some 
thirty or forty boys are moderate drinkers, four or five of them will 
certainly become drunkards. It always has been so, and always 
will be so ; and you cannot make it otherwise. Now come and 
join our Band of Hope, and no longer belong to the band of 
Despair. 

W. T. I thank you, friend James, for your advice. I will take 
it into consideration. 



64 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

License Laws. 



BY REV. JOHN PIERPONT. 



" For so much gold we license thee ; 

(So say our laws,) a draught to sell 
That bows the strong, enslaves the free, 

And opens wide the gate of hell : 
For public good requires that some, 
Since many die, should live by rum." 

Ye civil fathers ! while the foes 
Of this destroyer seize their swords, 

And heaven's own hail is in the blows 
They're dealing, will te cut the cord 

That round the falling fiend they draw, 

And o'er him hold your shield of law ? 

And will ye give to man a bill, 

Divorcing him from Heaven's high sway ? 
And, while God says, " Thou shalt not kill," 

Say ye, *•' for gold ye may — ye may ?' ' 
Compare the body with the soul ! 
Compare the bullet with the bowl ! 

In which is felt the fiercest blast 
Of the destroying angel's breath ? 

Which binds the victim the more fast ? 
Which kills him with the deadlier death ? 

Will ye the felon fox restrain 

And yet take off the tiger's chain ? 

0, holy God ! let light divine 

Break forth more broadly from above, 

Till we conform our laws to thine— 
The perfect law of truth and love. 

For truth and love alone can save 

The children from a hopeless grave. 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 65 



Prohibition of the Traffic. 



There is no escape from this war but in legislation, severe, and 
therefore wise and merciful. There is no Gilboa — no high place 
of safety— but in the Capitol of every commonweath. The broken- 
hearted wife must take sanctuary there, and pour her shrill, sharp 
cry for mercy, into the ears of our legislators. The stump, in our 
path, is the axiom of old — " Laws must not be more stringent than 
the Athenians will bear.'' And who are the Athenians ? The peo- 
ple of course. As one of the people, I certainly respect this prin- 
ciple. But I rejoice from the very pit of my soul, to perceive that 
the signs of the times are such as they are ; and that the people— 
the moral people, are growing stronger, from year to year, and 
more sharp-sighted in regard to the wisdom and fitness of legisla- 
tion for the suppression of THE curse ; for if the definite article 
is ever to be used, with singular propriety, it is so now, in relation 
to the sale and manufacture of the means of drunkenness in every 
form. 

At an earlier day, when the great hallucination prevailed exten- 
sively, and moral suasionists honestly believed that rumsellers were 
to be purged with nothing more drastic than hyssop ; a measure 
of forbearance was employed upon which we lock back with 
surprise. And yet it was quite natural, for zealous, kind-hearted 
men, who had ample personal experience of all that was excru- 
ciating in drunkenness, and its awful effects upon themselves and 
their families, to flatter themselves that they had the right and 
the power to persuade the rumseller to sell no more. Where are 
the seals of this too credulous ministry at large ? The father s 
earnest importunities to spare the hope of his half-broken heart, 
the only staff of his old age, were disregarded in innumerable 
instances. The wife, supplicating for mercy upon herself and her 
poor starving children, was turned from the rumsellers den, with 
brutal insolence. Numberless examples of a like character in every 
part of our country, sufficed to satisfy the world that the soil was 
ungenial — that moral suasionists were not the laborers for a field 



66 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

like this — and that the abstract spirit of the Gospel was not pre- 
cisely the coulter, by which a glebe so utterly stubborn and im- 
practicable was to be profitably stirred. 

Sir, if there is an occupation on earth, followed by men, or by 
wolves, in sheep's clothing — more surely calculated to corrupt and 
ossify the heart, than that of a rumseller, I know not where to 
seek for it, unless among some of those who are petty sultans born, 
and who are instructed in their very cradles, that they are masters 
and rulers of their kind, and bred up in the belief that others of 
their fellow beings, black, white or grey, are their slaves — to them 
and their heirs forever — over whom their authority is but a little 
less absolute than their dominion over the beasts of the field. The 
great public and private wrong, the selfishness and cruelty of this 
inhuman traffic in rum, with all the complicated misery that follows 
in its train, have been demonstrated, in the very ears of those who 
make, and those who sell, in every city and in every village of the 
land. The powers of reason have been exerted to their utmost, 
and pathos has been employed to touch the heart in the name of 
mercy ; and the voice of religion has been lifted up, in ten thousand 
holy places, exhorting the rum-seller to desist from his savage 
traffic, in the name of God. Not a change has been left unrung 
upon the peal of bells : but the ears of the rum-seller are unscrip- 
tural ears — ears not to hear. Constant dropping, we are assured, 
will wear a stone : the proverb is certainly at fault, nevertheless, in 
regard to that which is enveloped in the rum-seller's pericardium. 

After the most deliberate consideration of ail that has been done, 
and all that has been suffered, for some forty years, since combi- 
nations first commenced among us for the suppression of intemper- 
ance, it is impossible to anticipate a more favorable issue for the 
future, through any mental, moral, or merciful agency, without the 
aid of vigorous laws, promptly and impartially executed. — Lucius 
M. Sargent. 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 61 

The Trial of Alcohol. 



CHARGED WITH MURDER, ROBBERY, AC. 



Supreme Court of Public Opinion. 

The People ) Hon. R. Candor, Chief Justice. 

vs. > Hon. S. Impartiality, ) 

Alcohol, j Hon. G. Patience, V Associate Justices. 

Hon. H. Honesty, ) 
Counsel for the People — J. Goodwill, Att'y Gen. 
Council for Defendant — Squire Self-Interest. 

The jury, twelve good men, being sworn, the prisoner was brought 
to the bar, and the Clerk read the Indictment. 

Clerk. May it please the Court, the Indictment charges the 
prisoner — 

1. — With swindling and taking money under false pretenses. 

2. — With leing a frequenter of gambling houses and other vile 
places, and a great cause there of disorder and crime. 

3. — With being a family disturber, breaking up domestic peace and 
happiness. 

4. — Depriving many men of their reason, and causing them to 
commit suicide. 

5. — Eeducing many families to pauperism and shame. 

6. — Causing a thousand murders every year and rilling up poor- 
houses and mad-houses with ruined victims. 

7.— With opposing the blessed gospel and dragging many souls to 
death and hell. 

Prisoner ! what is your plea, guilty or not guilty ? 

Prisoner. Not guilty. 

Clerk. Plow will you be tried ? 

Pris. By God and my country. 

Clerk. God send you a good deliverance. 

Attorney General. May it please the Court and Gentlemen 
of the Jury, the prisoner is charged with a variety of heinous 
crimes— with being a disturber of the public peace, a seducer, a 
robber, a murderer both of the bodies and the souls of men. 
I shall not detain you with a long speech, but substantiate the 
truths of the indict ment by good and true witnesses. I first call 
Mr. Easy mind. 



68 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

Mr. Easymind, do you know the prisoner? Can you tell anything 
about him ? 

Witness. I can, Sir ; for I have suffered much from him. He 
was often at my father's house and he professed much medical skill, 
and when my wife was sick, he promised a cure, but made her a 
drunkard and I forbade him my house. 

Att'y Gen. Have you any sons? 

Witness. Yes, Sir, three ; but I have not much comfort in 
them, for they are constantly drawn away by the prisoner to scenes 
of drinking, horse-racing and gambling. 

Att'y Gen. How do they come home? 

Witness. Often drunk at the midnight hour. 

Squire Self-Interest. You say he made your wife a drunkard. 
Do you know he did ? Eemember, Sir, you are on your oath. 

Witness. Why if he didn't, who did ? 

Squire S. I. That is not answering the question. Do you 
know he made her a drunkard ? Can you swear that she was not 
born one ? 

Witness. I know that she was not one till she began to take 
his medicines. 

Squire S. I. You say he ruined your sons : were they not 
vicious before they became acquainted with him ? 

Witness. No, Sir ; never were better boys. 

Att y Gen. Mr. Sobermind, do you know the prisoner at 
the bar. 

Witness. I once did, to my sorrow. He found me an indus- 
trious, hard-laboring young man. He took me to the tavern, the 
store, the saloon — I tremble to think what he did for me. He got 
all my money out of my pockets, and my clothes from my back. 
Ibecama under his leadings a vile drunkard, and slept in barns and 
behind barrels ; but I quit him, Sir, and since then I have come up 
to be again what I was, 

At^y Gen. What does he do with families? 

Witness. It would take me a year to tell the sorrow and trou- 
ble he gives. 

Att'y Gen. Did you ever know him to divide husband and 
wife? 



THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 69 

Witness. Tes, Sir ; in many cases. 

Att'y Gen. Did he ever cause a murder ia your neighborhood ? 

Witness. Yes, Sir, in many cases. But we could never get 
him indicted and trie J because he had so many friends. 

Squire S. I. You say you are now his enemy. 

Witness. Yes, Sir. And if I could get him expelled from 
the county I would. 

Squire S. I. May it please the Court, I object to this witness. 
He testifies under strong hostility, and he cannot be expected to 
speak the truth. His testimony should not be received by the jury. 

Att'y Gen. Squire Coke, you have been at the bar many 
years ; what do you know of the prisoner. 

Witness. I know that but for him we lawyers should soon 
starve. 

Att'y Gen. Please explain what you mean. 

Witness. Mean ! I mean what I say ; for more than two-thirds 
of our criminal cases are caused by him ; nearly all the fights and 
murders are his work. 

Squire S..I. Did he not keep you, by all the votes he cast, 
from being a Congressman ? Did not all the rum men go against 
you? 

Witness. Yes, Sir. And it was the proudest day of my life. 

Squire S. I. Gentlemen of the Jury, you see under what influ- 
ence he testifies. His testimony is good for 'nothing. 

Att'y Gen. Mr. Lovetruth, you have been a collector of taxes ; 
what has the prisoner had to do with the taxation of the town ? 

Witness. He has caused more than one half of it. We have 
twenty-five paupers all charged to him, and a jail full, and many 
casualties by fire and wrecks are caused by him for which the 
town must pay. And since no restraint has been laid upon him, 
the taxes have increased double. 

Squire S. I. Do you suppose there would be no taxes among 
Cold Water men ? How much did Croton Water Works cost? 
witnesses for the defence. 

Squire S. I. Mr. Animal Appetite, please state what you know 
of this gentleman. 

Witness. He is the best friend I ever had, Sir. He always 



^0 THE TEMPERANCE SPEAKER. 

gives me good cheer and cures me of all my diseases. I could not 
live without him. 

Att'y Gen. Did he never kill any body ? 

Witness. That is no concern of mine, Sir. Eoast beef and 
plum pudding will kill men if they eat too much. 

Squire S.I. I would call, may it please the Court, upon Mr. 
Lovegain. What is the influence of this gentleman upon the trade 
of the country. 

Witness. Oh, it has increased it mightily, Sir. We have 
made more money by this gentleman than by any cotton speculation 
or anything else. His liquors draw out more money than all the 
cotton and tobacco together. 

Att'y Gen. And what does he give for the money he gets ? 
Anything valuable ? 

Witness. That's nothing to me, Sir. 

Att'y Gen. Is he not then a thief and a robber ? 

May it please the Court, you have heard all the witnesses for the 
defence, and they amount to nothing. I shall now, without argu- 
ment, submit the case. 

Chief Justice Candor charges the jury — 

Gentlemen of the Jury : You have heard the Indictment and 
the witnesses for and against him. You will render a verdict 
according to your consciences. I commit the fate of the prisoner 
to you. 

When the jury came in the Clerk said — 

Foreman, what is your verdict — guilty or not guilty ? 

Foreman. Guilty ! 

sentence of the court. 

Judge. Mr. Prisoner, stand up. You are pronounced guilty 
of the enormous charges which have been brought against you, and 
you will be taken hence from the place whence you came, in 
rum puncheons, and there be cast into a vat of Cold Water. And 
may you die and be forgotten forever. — Recorder. 



INDEX. 

PAGE. 

Arm for the Battle — poern 58 

Band of Hope — poem. — John Payne 7 

Battle for Freedom.— Dr. Tyng 5 

Bucket that hung in the Well — poem. — Woodworth 41 

Cadet Army 54 

Carnage of the Traffic. — Rev. J. Marsh 56 

Clear the Way — poem. — Charles Mackay 20 

Christian Moderationists, Appeal to 28 

Dialogues : 

1 . Family Pledges, between James and Elizabeth 9 

2. I'm too Young ! — George and James. — English Tract. . . 14 

3. What's the Harm ? — James and his Father 17 

4. George Carter and his Companions 25 

5. The Cadet and Rumseller 30 

6. The Cadets and their Companions 34 

7. Fourth of July 44 

8. The Army of Cadets 54 

9. Trial of Alcohol 67 

Doings of Alcohol. — Richmond Paper 49 

Drink, Drink, Drink !— S. Car. Ad 29 

Drinking Customs , 39 

Drunkard's Alphabet.— Truth Teller 33 

Happiness, its Source. — Horace Mann 39 

Fallen Youth.—/. Woodman 21 

Frozen to Death 22 

Good Time Coming 32 

Intemperate, Death of the— J". Marsh 27 



INDEX. 

Lamb, Charles — his Confession 23 

License, none. — S. Car. Ad. 46 

License Laws — poem. — Pierpont 64 

Lieutenant's Speech 19 

Maniac's Plea , 16 

Parody, by the Springfield Boy 48 

Pledge, Signing the — Theo. Frelinghysen 42 

Positions defined. — J. B. Gough 43 

Press Onward — Selected 12 

Prohibitory Law. — W. H. Burleigh 51 

Eights of Property. — Gerrit Smith 60 

Biver, Song of the 17 

Bumseller a Murderer. — Hawkins 47 

Eum Traffic. — Tern. Jour 10 

Bum Traffic, no quarter to be given — A. 31. Vansant 11 

Short Life and Merry. — English Speaker 13 

Take a Little 40 

Tides are Eising 55 

Temperance Boy — poem 30 

Traffic, Prohibition of — Sargent 65 

Time to Sign.— Selected „ 36 

Up for the Eight— poem.— J". P. Prall 38 

Tender creates the Appetite. — J. Nburse 32 

Whispering Gallery. — Dr. Lyman Beecher 42 

Water, — Paul Denton 6 

Woman, her Sufferings. — S. Car. Ad 37 

Woman in the Bail Car. — Cay. Chief 59 

Young Man's First Glass 24 



18.Aprl.1860 



TEMPERANCE DEPOSITORY, 

NO. 10 PARK BANK, NEW YORK. 



All Temperance Books & Tracts constantly- on hand. 



Journal of American Temperance Union, and New York 

Prohibitionist. Monthly, 16 pages Quarto. Price $1, single 
copy ; ten copies for $5 . 

Youths' Temperance Advocate, Pictorial. The only child's 

Temperance paper in the Union, well adapted to Sunday Scho jls, 
Bands of Hope, &c. Published monthly, at $9 a hundred, and 
$11, postage paid; fifty copies, $4.50, postage paid, $5.60; 
twenty-five copies, $2.25, postage paid, $2.75 ; ten copies, $1.00. 

Band of Hope Roll Books, Song Books, Cards, Certificates. 

All orderl^romptly attended to. Address 

Rev. J. MARSH, D. IX 

No. 10 Park Bank, N. Y. 



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